Nabokov: the Prose and Poetry of It All  Readers of Lolita may
recall that Humbert Humbert, who delivers himself of the
contents of the book while in confinement awaiting trial for
murder, is something of a poet. “You can always count on a
murderer for a fancy prose style,” he says, and you can count on
this particular murderer for scattered flights of verse as well.
His are “occassional poems” in the most invidious sense
possible. His muse materializes only intermittently, and when
she does it is in response to situations of a kind that do not,
as a rule, give rise to la poèsie pure—or whatever we may call
the opposite of occasional poetry.  Hoping, for example, to calm
his restless Lolita he improvises a bit of what he tells her is
“nonsense verse.”  The Squirl and his Squirrel, the Rabs and
their Rabbits Have certain obscure and peculiar habits. Male
humming birds make the most exquisite rockets. The snake when he
walks holds his hands in his pockets.  Nonsense is correct,”
Lolita says mockingly perhaps gu