No props - for once we have you unstaged, ideal
                genius at forty without
    wadded-silk dressing-gown, wine-velvet beret,
 
            a villa filled with idols.
    You stare off-camera at - what? Here at least
            there is more than meets the ear
 
    cocked, this moment, for Frau Wesendonck's praises
            and for Cosima's prayers -
    so much more ardent, at sixteen, than Minna's:
 
            a few infidelities
    will bring far less sorrow than the long-drawn-out
            disloyalty of desire.
 
    What we see is what we dream you must have been,
            boldly readying yourself
    for what Baudelaire called the greatest honor
 
            a poet can have: to do
    no more and no less that what he intended...