Though once a slave before tradition's throne,
The poet now need please himself alone.
No more by patient toil, as Horace schools,
He serves a stern apprenticeship to rules.
A youth, new bitten by the flea to write,
Can scratch himself to poet overnight!
Pebbles that lurk beneath the self's dark sea
Can win acclaim as pearls of poetry,
Provided that the ropes on which they're strung
Are twisted dreams by Freud or myths by Jung;
For, like high priests whose revenue depends
Upon a lore no layman comprehends,
The modern critic gives his best reviews
To work that's esoteric and abstruse,
And should it prove too dense (like courtier bold
Who praised the king's new clothes in fable old)
Boldly he'll vaunt the poem's well-cut shape
And trace rich patterns where the public gape...
Oh, for an honest child to cry halloo
For naked truths that Burke and Johnson knew,
Or another Pope from Twickenham
To drop clean acid from a poisoned pen.