Nabokov, indeed. Thank you, Sam! Funny his name should come up, as I read a smart article by worthy critic David Orr only yesterday about
‘... the 999 lines of
Pale Fire, the centerpiece of his novel of the same name, whose opening is quoted as frequently as many of the past century’s most admired poems:
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.’