SALUTATION THE THIRD
Let us deride the smugness of “The Times”:
GUFFAW!
So much the gagged reviewers,
It will pay them when the worms are wriggling in their vitals;
These were they who objected to newness,
HERE are their TOMB-STONES.
They supported the gag and the ring:
A little black BOX contains them.
SO shall you be also,
You slut-bellied obstructionist,
You sworn foe to free speech and good letters,
You fungus, you continuous gangrene.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I have seen many who go about with supplications,
Afraid to say how they hate you
HERE is the taste of my BOOT,
CARESS it, lick off the BLACKING.
To attempt to lay the entire onus of so flagrant a spiritual and cerebral degeneration to the writing of vers libre alone is of course impossible. But the tendency is clear. Fortunately, however, we are not all Ezra Pounds and there are still poets balanced enough to appreciate these dangers and to make of free verse the wonderful vehicle it can be in the hands of a genius.