Rugby Love Reduced to Black and White in Cambridge Love
That love continued into Cambridge days.
One Rugby beauty took another in
A frame and kept him in his room to gaze
At eyes, at stalwart auburn hair, and chin,
Not just in daytime, either, but in nights
Of loneliness without warm flesh and shape
Of truth, “truth beauty.” Keats had known the heights
Of love frustrated. Even just the nape
Of solid neck in strength would likely be
Enough in Rupert’s mind to torture love
Like sweated heart, but then he could not see
From frontal view the shaft that rose above
The back of Charles as Brooke had seen it on
The playing field, that swelling skin of brawn.
~ Phillip Whidden