Music must be paramount: Choose for this an Uneven Rhythm, More indefinite, more soluble in air, With nothing to press or bind. You must not hesitate to choose Your words without ambiguity: The best song is a hazy song Where Vagueness and Precision join. There, are eyes beautiful and veiled, And the quivering light of high noon, There, in a cooled autumnal sky, Is a blue confusion of bright stars. For we must have Nuance still, Not Color-nothing but nuance! Ah! only nuance can betroth Dream to dream and flute to horn! Flee far as possible from deadly Jest, From cruel Wit and impure Laughter, That make the eyes of Heaven weep- Avoid this garlic of low-class kitchens! Take eloquence and wring its neck! And while you are in the mood, try To moderate Rhyme a little more. If you don't, what limit will it reach? Who can tell the wrongs that Rhyme has done? What deaf child or crazy Negro Fashioned us this bauble from a coin That rings false and hollow under the file? Music, always more music! Let your verse be the winged thing We feel soaring from a soul on its way To other loves in other heavens. Let your verse be a good-luck charm Scattered on the brisk morning wind That passes smelling of mint and thyme. . . . And everything else is mere literature. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOR ONCE, THEN, SOMETHING by ROBERT FROST MEMORIAL DAY by WILLIAM E. BROOKS THE VALLEY BROOK by JOHN HOWARD BRYANT IN HOSPITAL: 4. BEFORE by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY BALLAD: TIME OF ROSES by THOMAS HOOD THE MOWER'S SONG by ANDREW MARVELL LITTLE JESUS by FRANCIS THOMPSON |