Robert Jones, a poet who taught French at MIT; 77

Mindful of the quarter-century difference in their ages and the illness that threatened his own life, Robert Emmet Jones wrote a poem for his marriage in December to James Ryan, composing verses that looked past the remaining months they would share.

One day, Dr. Jones wrote, his spouse will sit by a fire sipping sherry with someone new, love in his heart.

You may see me in the flame
And smile
And tell your novice
Of your first beloved
The funny one that thought you were a world

He called the poem ``Aveugle Amour" -- blind love.

Francophile, opera lover, scholar, poet, and novelist, Dr. Jones taught French and literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for about 25 years and had been a fixture in the Back Bay -- the gray-haired man who held court at Brasserie Jo and could be seen strolling Marlborough and Beacon streets with a cigarette and two gray-haired schnauzers.

Dr. Jones, 77, who suffered from kidney ailments and had been undergoing dialysis treatments, died of an infection on June 3 in Massachusetts General Hospital.

At once acerbic and kind, ``he didn't suffer fools gladly," Ryan said, adding with a chuckle, ``but he never let fools know that he wasn't suffering them."

Devoted to the performing arts, Dr. Jones either held season subscriptions or was a regular at Boston's opera companies, ballet, and symphony -- ``there was hardly a night that there wasn't a ticket to go somewhere," Ryan said.

His memory for nights at the opera in Boston and in New York was precise, as were his assessments of the musicians' successes and failures. When a Boston performance of ``Don Giovanni" fell short of his standards, Dr. Jones quipped, `` `The only thing that saved that performance was Mozart,' " Ryan recalled. ``Bob could talk a lot, but when he had something direct to say, he knew how to say it."

Dr. Jones grew up in the Riverdale section of New York City in an affluent family. His grandfather had worked closely with industrialist John D. Rockefeller. The family's fortunes faltered in the years after Dr. Jones's father died when he was 5 and his younger brother, Thomas, was an infant. Their mother eventually went to work.

Dr. Jones attended Columbia College, graduating at 20. A few years later he was on the verge of receiving a doctorate from Columbia and he looked younger than his years -- too young, he was told, to teach students his own age.

``He was quite beautiful as a young man," Ryan said, so professors suggested he spend time studying in France. ``They sent him away to age, like a bottle of wine."

Dr. Jones attended the Sorbonne, earning a certificate to go along with his doctorate from Columbia.

Returning to the United States, he was a visiting instructor in French at Columbia, an assistant professor of French at the University of Georgia, and an assistant professor of romance languages at the University of Pennsylvania. From there he was recruited by MIT to help strengthen the humanities department.

He retired 15 years ago as a professor of French and humanities. His books ranged from the academic, ``The Alienated Hero in Modern French Literature," to a novel published a few years ago, ``Botticelli's Face."

Though he had lived in Boston for nearly 40 years, the New York of his youth tugged on his imagination. Of the poems Dr. Jones wrote, his favorite was ``The Hudson River," which he filled with images from his childhood and beyond.

Where I was born the river ran into a way of life

That had forgotten rivers

But Dr. Jones did not forget the place where he took girls for an ``adolescent kiss" on nights when ``the river was an adjunct to mistaken love."

At MIT, he ``had an amazing effect on his students," Ryan said. Former students frequently dropped by the apartment Dr. Jones had purchased on Beacon Street after living for many years on Marlborough Street.

The walls were filled with paintings he had purchased since he was 19 -- he never discarded art -- and thousands of books. One wall was devoted to French literature and French drama, another to books on religion. Dr. Jones returned to France once a year and dined on the French fare at Brasserie Jo at least twice a week, Ryan said.

``Our apartment was like Grand Central," Ryan said. ``He was famous for his ability to drink anyone under the table, and did many a time. He had a joie de vivre, as they say, that was just indefatigable. If he could drag himself out, he did."

In addition to his spouse, Dr. Jones leaves his brother, Thomas of Nashville.

A memorial service will be held tomorrow at 4 p.m. tomorrow in the MIT Chapel. Burial will be in Mount Hope Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.