THE later drafts of some lines I wrote recently called CYNICS AND ROMANTICS, and contrasting the sophisticated and ingenuous ideas of Love, give a fairly good idea of the conscious process of getting a poem in order. I make no claim for achievement, the process is all that is intended to appear, and three or four lines are enough for illustration:
1st Draft.
In club or messroom let them sit,
Let them indulge salacious wit
On love’s romance, but not with hearts
Accustomed to those healthier parts
Of grim self-mockery....
2nd Draft. (Consideration:—It is too soon in the poem for the angry jerkiness of “Let them indulge.” Also “Indulge salacious” is hard to say; at present, this is a case for being as smooth as possible.)
In club or messroom let them sit
Indulging contraversial wit
On love’s romance, but not with hearts
Accustomed....
3rd Draft. (Consideration:—No, we have the first two lines beginning with “In.” It worries the eye. And “sit, indulging” puts two short “i’s” close together. “Contraversial” is not the word. It sounds as if they were angry, but they are too blasé for that. And “love’s romance” is cheap for the poet’s own ideal.)
In club or messroom let them sit
At skirmish of salacious wit
Laughing at love, yet not with hearts
Accustomed....
4th Draft. (Consideration:—Bother the thing! “Skirmish” is good because it suggests their profession, but now we have three S’s,—“sit,” “skirmish,” “salacious.” It makes them sound too much in earnest. The “salacious” idea can come in later in the poem. And at present we have two “at’s” bumping into each other; one of them must go. “Yet” sounds better than “but” somehow.)
In club or messroom let them sit
With skirmish of destructive wit
Laughing at love, yet not with hearts
Accustomed....