To the one hundred and two scholars before me

Who wrote the books I read about Ephraim Tate,

Eighteenth century, unknown then and now;

To mother; to father; to my high school principal,

Who first told me that teaching is the good life;

To Georgia Drew; to my uncle, who lent me money;

To English poetry from its dark beginnings onward;

To Shakespeare's childhood and Blake's tall angels,

And the sun-yellow blaze Van Gogh painted for me;

To the people I drank coffee with at midnight talking

In a booth in a dirty shop on University Avenue;

To the British Museum, the Huntington Library, Yale,

And Harvard; to Joe; to the New York Philharmonic;

To Dr. John June, Miss April August, and F. T. Zero,

Who removed dangling participles and I suppose helped;

To the Saturday Evening Post, Life, and the New Yorker,

Which kept me from being left alone with Ephraim Tate;.

To all the students who attend my classes now,

Not guessing that I am afraid of them and love them,

Or how much I'd like to shout about Blake's angels;

And to the hope of forgetting Ephraim Tate forever,

And learning to teach,

I dedicate this book.