I was very sad, I was very solemn-- I had worked all day fooling with a column. I got as far as this and took my verses in To Mr. Geoffrey Parsons, who said, "Kid, you win." And--not that I imagine that any one'll care-- I blew that jitney on a subway fare.
LINES PROVOKED BY HEARING A YOUNG MAN WHISTLING
No carmine radical in Art, I worship at the shrine of Form; Yet open are my mind and heart To each departure from the norm. When Post-Impressionism emerged, I hesitated but a minute Before I saw, though it diverged, That there was something healthy in it.
And eke when Music, heavenly maid, Undid the chains that chafed her feet, I grew to like discordant shade-- Unharmony I thought was sweet. When verse divorced herself from sound, I wept at first. Now I say: "Oh, well, I see some sense in Ezra Pound, And nearly some in Amy Lowell."
Yet, though I storm at every change, And each mutation makes me wince, I am not shut to all things strange-- I'm rather easy to convince. But hereunto I set my seal, My nerves awry, askew, abristling: _I'll never change the way I feel_ _Upon the question of Free Whistling._
Unshackled Thoughts on Chivalry, Romance, Adventure, Etc.
Yesterday afternoon, while I was walking on Worth Street, A gust of wind blew my hat off. I swore, petulantly, but somewhat noisily. A young woman had been near, walking behind me; She must have heard me, I thought. And I was ashamed, and embarrassedly sorry. So I said to her: "If you heard me, I beg your pardon." But she gave me a frightened look And ran across the street, Seeking a policeman. So I thought, Why waste five hours trying to versify the incident? Vers libre would serve her right.
("Humourists have amused themselves by translating famous sonnets into free verse. A result no less ridiculous would have been obtained if somebody had rewritten a passage from 'Paradise Lost' as a rondeau."--GEORGE SOULE in the _New Republic_.)
Sing, Heavenly Muse, in lines that flow More smoothly than the wandering Po, Of man's descending from the height Of Heaven itself, the blue, the bright, To Hell's unutterable throe.
Of sin original and the woe That fell upon us here below From man's pomonic primal bite-- Sing, Heavenly Muse!