read "Recuerdo," by Miss Millay,
And I said, "I'll bet a nickel I can write that way."

I was very sad, I was very solemn--
I had worked all day whittling out a column.
I said, "I'll bet a nickel I can chirp such a chant,"
And Mr. Geoffrey Parsons said, "I'll bet you can't."
I bit a chunk of chocolate and found it sweet,
And I listened to the trucking on Frankfort Street.

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.

On Tradition

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.

Results Ridiculous

("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_.)

"PARADISE LOST"