RUSKIN WRITES TO KATE GREENAWAY

Posted by Admin on 1 February 2009, 12:00 am

If kisses, penned, meant naught,
by what right did this man,
whose artist’s soul and aesthete’s mind
found satisfaction in the sight
and sound and touch of little girls,
include those amorous addenda in
his carping critic screeds,
encouraging responses he’d
capriciously reject?
What right had he to use
flirtatious terms to lure
and make his Kate,
a foil Petruchio
turned pedant loved to tease?
Though one might say he had
the right of genius
which knows no rules except
its own – another more
unkind, his temple tapped
with finger, might reveal
the truth.