Antiquarian Gnomic Pathos Traps in a Mode of Cartouched Enclosures

What? No bed of arugula?
Some words are too pretty to eat.
They gesture gently from themselves.
They seem to name, but it’s weak.

It’s easy to mock such language,
The verbiage of scholiasts,
But by turning mostly inwards,
All goggle-eyed for distant pasts,

They maintain their own small gardens,
Sunken oases within them,
Where stagnant, mossy meanings green
And dim scenes play out behind scrims.