After his divorce from his second wife, the poet withdrew from "romantic entanglements" to "cleanse the palate". One of the results of this period of celibate introspection was this book, which expresses the awareness of past and future loves and the nature of the romantic ideal itself. The poems themselves run from the spiritual to the erotic, from the exactly craft of the sonnet and villanelle to the flow of versa libre. The cover model is reputed to be "The Faerie", who was one of his totems during this period.