On Tradition
Franklin P. Adams 1881 (Chicago, Illinois) – 1960 (New York City, New York)
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.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 48 sec read
- 102 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | A BCBCDXDX EFEFGXGX HIHIJAJA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 861 |
Words | 159 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 8, 8, 8 |
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"On Tradition" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/14150/on-tradition>.
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