interpolated by his friends into the _Castle of Indolence_, to
remain, though it begins with the line,

A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems.

And in these days, the sentimental reader is shocked by Joyce Kilmer's
callous assertion, "I am fat and gross.... In my youth I was slightly
decorative. But now I drink beer instead of writing about absinthe."
[Footnote: Letter to Father Daly, November, 1914.]

Possibly it would not be unreasonable to take difference in weight as
another distinction between idealistic and sensuous poets. Of one recent
realistic poet it is recorded, "How a poet could _not_ be a glorious
eater, he said he could not see, for the poet was happier than other
men, by reason of his acuter senses." [Footnote: Richard Le Gallienne,
_Joyce Kilmer_.] As a rule, however, decadent and spiritual poets alike
shrink from the thought of grossness, in spite of the fact that Joyce
Kilmer was able to win his wager, "I will write a poem about a
delicatessen shop. It will be a high-brow poem. It will be liked."
[Footnote: Robert Cortez Holliday, _Memoir of Joyce Kilmer_, p. 62.] Of
course Keats accustomed the public to the idea that there are aesthetic
distinctions in the sense of taste, but throughout the last century the
idea of a poet enjoying solid food was an anomaly. Whitman's
proclamation of himself, "Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating and
drinking and breeding" [Footnote: _Song of Myself_.] automatically shut
him off, in the minds of his contemporaries, from consideration as a
poet.

It is a nice question just how far a poet may go in ignoring the demands
of the flesh. Shelley's friends record that his indifference reached the