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May 16, 2001:
An Horatian Ode
Upon the Retirement of Harold Shapiro from the Presidency of Princeton University

by Paul Muldoon

At College and Alexander

I stood last week, in the candor

of a nearly new moon,

and thought of just how soon

I'd learned not to be seen to wince

when Princetonians hailed the Prince

of Orange and Nassau,

his name a clapperclaw

that was rammed down my Papish throat

by Orangemen trailing their black coats

on the Twelfth of July,

his name coming to vie

for shame with Cromwell's, whose return

from Ireland spurred us on to spurn

the English and the Dutch,

yet inspired an ode of such

full-blown majesty by Marvell

as to make my own seem larval.

And yet, and yet, and yet,

the model Marvell set

is one I seize, since the ode's cracked

up to mirror the perfect tact,

fine judgment easy grace,

that are ever the case

with a man who was ever meant,

it seems, to be the president

of some place or other.

(Or was that his brother?)

I picture Harold, with his twin,

presiding over the dull din of cooks,

captains and crews

each night in Ruby Foo's,

the restaurant in Montreal

where he'd first hear, and heed, the call

to lay aside his pen

for "management of men",

the term Yeats used for his own days

spent directing players and plays,

doing deals in shabby

back- rooms of the Abbey

while stirring that tragicomic

brew of art and economics.

It was to the latter,

and other math-matters,

that Harold was drawn, ice hockey,

water polo and such "jocky"

pursuits having now been

rid from the radar screen

partly by the magnetic force

we know as Vivian, of course,

whose own grace and judgment

seem to be heaven-sent,

as when the moon comes between us

(as it does tonight) and Venus,

and their brief conjunction

is seen as a function

of the gods, a sign that the Fates

are once again sitting up late

to take destiny and

give it a helping hand...

As I pondered such foreknowledge

at Alexander and College

that moonlit night last week,

( determined to speak

not of the Harold Shapiro

who added so many zeroes

to Princeton's great bequest,

not the one who addressed

the critics of Peter Singer

with yet another humdinger

on academic scope,

not the one who gave hope

to generations of poor kids

who might otherwise never bid

for a place in our school,

not the one who pulls wool

off our eyes vis-¦-vis Dolly

and leads us through hacks and hollies

and prickles and pickets

of the bioethicket

to a clear space, a parley-place

marked by fine judgement, easy grace,

in which the grand ideal

is rooted in the real...

I speak not of this public man

whom all may praise (if praise they can),

but the Harold who smiled

on the name of my child,

Asher Muldoon (a Jewish slash

lace curtain Irish corned beef hash).

the Harold whom I'd meet

on Dublin's Nassau Street

not far from where King Billy's horse

pawed the bronze-gold air in the course

of that great cavalcade

which Joyce made and remade,

the Harold I'd hall there, as here,

for having let each of us clear

a space in which we might

stand on a moonlit night

and stop to consider the givens

on which we're less reared than riven,

to steadfastly refuse

all rigid, received views,

so that I even now evince

a hard-won regard for the Prince

of Orange and Nassau

who left my homeland raw

by being seen to gladly yield

to the orange-black of his shield

as I ready myself to raise

a full glass in full praise

of the Harold who taught us all

to hear, and heed, the highest call

which comes not just to each

of us who tries to teach

but students, staff, stars under clouds,

the Harold who made us all proud

to belong to the throng

he humbly moves among.

Paul Muldoon