The poem
'Listen, now, verse should be as natural As the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal beauty.'
'Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil That goes like blood to the poem's making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, Limp as bindweed, if it break at all Life's iron crust. Man, you must sweat And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build Your verse a ladder.' 'You speak as though No sunlight ever surprised the mind Groping on its cloudy path.'
'Sunlight's a thing that needs a window Before it enter a dark room. Windows don't happen.' So two old poets, Hunched at their beer in the low haze Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran Noisily by them, glib with prose.