Part 2 moves from poems of distant love and consuming desire to witty ballades about the book lover’s paradise, friars, railway novels, neglected achievement, and the uncertain rewards of literary fame. The “Art” section mocks critics, collectors, galleries, and fashionable devotion to miscellaneous objects, exposing the vanity and pretension surrounding artistic taste. The “Science” poems parody bird-shaped creator gods, primitive humanity, evolution, and the origin of laughter, playfully setting modern theories beside ancient myth. In “Cameos,” Helen, Oedipus, Artemis, Isis, and other classical figures reappear in brief, finely shaped scenes, while “The Spinet” closes the collection with the lingering emotions awakened by music, memory, and objects from the past.
