Great Regulars: As with Shakespeare, the poet sounds

all the cleverer for his rhetorical gesture. There is a hint of Donne here, too, with the lover entertaining (one hopes) his beloved with the ingenuity of his thought--perhaps the only true gift that can be made by a person who regards his partner as "flower, and stone".

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: The Gifts by Norman MacCaig

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