Mitt Romney: the soul of a poet

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Mitt Romney is seeking to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot “oceanfront manse” in La Jolla, California, and replace it with an 11,062-square-foot manse.

Some might find this plan unseemly. They seem not to recognize that Mitt Romney has something of a poet’s soul. Consider his reason for living in La Jolla, at least when he’s not living in Massachusetts or New Hampshire at one of his other manses:

“I wanted to be where I could hear the waves,” Romney told a gaggle of media last year at a book signing in University City. “As a boy we spent summers on Lake Huron and I could hear the crashing waves at night. It was one of my favorite things in the world; being near the water and the waves was something I very badly wanted to experience again.”

Is it William Butler Yeats I hear in these words of longing? I believe it is.

I will arise now, and go to La Jolla,
And a large house build there, of brick and
    stucco made:
Nine bathrooms will I have there . . . .

Of course, the resemblance is not exact. Yeats didn’t build a small cabin in Innisfree and tear it down to build a larger cabin. He never even went to Innisfree. Romney went to La Jolla: he is more a man of action. Also, Romney didn’t build the first house. It was waiting for him when he got to La Jolla. Also, La Jolla is not a lake isle. As I said, not exact.

But get this: Romney’s $10-million New Hampshire manse stands by the edge of Lake Winnipesaukee. Yes, by the shores of Winnipesaukee, by the shining Big-Bucks-Water. A poet’s soul.

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[Details found via the Huffington Post. With apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Butler Yeats.]