but oh, but there is a dying look to the city now, the leaves have not yet reddened, yet no flowers linger, and nothing green abides -- now cambridge in june! - what was it isabella said about her flowers - unholy and riotous? just so! but this time of year - all blooms shed, all colours withdrawn, the earth impassive. even as we went to the gardner museum over the weekend, the courtyard, which on several previous occasions made me tear, dismayed me. dull chrysanthemums, in dusty colours, not the living garden i remember, merely a courtyard undefined, joyless. i had known it in spring and winter, in summer too, but never this time of year. you know how in the keats (the sage has withered from the lake) he ends the line with the deadening, leaden "and no birds sing" - it's like that in cambridge now. (you'll hear quite a bit about keats these days - helen vendler, you know, is teaching keats and yeats this semester, and after rikita and tam lin and the eve of st agnes i'm feeling rather more enthusiastic about the romantics.)

though perhaps, in this mood, i should go and see the glass flowers again.