O’Leary was a poet—for a while: <br />He sang of many ladies frail and fair, <br />The rolling glory of their golden hair, <br />And emperors extinguished with a smile. <br />They foiled his years with many an ancient wile, <br />And if they limped, O’Leary didn’t care: <br />He turned them loose and had them everywhere, <br />Undoing saints and senates with their guile. <br /> <br />But this was not the end. A year ago <br />I met him—and to meet was to admire: <br />Forgotten were the ladies and the lyre, <br />And the small, ink-fed Eros of his dream. <br />By questioning I found a man to know— <br />A failure spared, a Shadrach of the Gleam.<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shadrach-o-leary/
