Moored to the decaying piling Of a ruined wharf, and whiling Endless hours away in dreams of days gone by, Lies a battered hulk, dismasted, Broken backed and tempest blasted, Like a dolphin fast aground and left to die. Deck awash and planking slanted Like a broken lily planted In the mud, where every tide the eddies swirl, Years have gone since last it floated And the sea growths all unnoted, Underneath its rotting timbers twine and curl. Often when my footsteps tended To that lonely shore that ended All its voyagings there sounded in my ear, What the shrilling sea birds uttered And the voiceless current muttered Solemn messages it meant for me to hear; “Far off seas no more beguile me “But their memories reconcile me “To the shelter of this silver mirrored cove “Where my outline seems engraven “Like an etching. Safe in haven “I am home at last, and nevermore shall rove.” THE MODERNISTS Bam, wham! Clangor of cymbals and shriek of a fife, That stabs like a knife. Zam, slam! Bang on the tambourine, beat on the drums, Symphony comes! Greet her with tom-toms while savages dance, Let any discord the riot enhance, Down with all melody, harmony, poise, Give us more noise! Tonal inebriates, drunken with sound, Pound, brothers, pound! Furiously, frenziedly, round and around Whirls the mad medley of ear splitting notes, Like the yelling of demons with flame blackened throats. Music is stricken, is dying, ’tis said, Over her head, Set all the boiler works off on a spree! Jazz and more jazz in a mad jamboree, Music is dead! But still in the morning the song sparrow sings And blithely she wings, And from her gay throat a sweet melody springs, Old as the Pyramids, new as the dawn, Music will live when this madness has gone. Blah, blurb! Pronoun and verb. For poetry give us a barbaric yawp Slop, Stop! The stuff that some long haired Bohemian raves Would make Keats and Tennyson turn in their graves Miscalled free verse, And trash that is worse. Nothing too banal or trite or absurd, Such is the artistic triumph preferred, To melodies sung When old Homer was young. Out with the rhyming brook, limpid and pure, Open a sewer! Let the nymph Poesy cover her face, Downcast and blushing at such a disgrace. Garbage of words and cesspool of thought Columns and pages of rubbish and rot, Only a blot! This is not Poesy spawned in the mire, High on Olympus she still sounds her lyre With the immortals. Her rapt, vibrant fire Blasts like a flame All the abortions brought forth in her name.