Explore "Results Ridiculous" by Franklin P. Adams on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
("Humourists have amused themselves by translating famous / sonnets into free verse. A result no less ridiculous would / have been obtained if somebody had rewritten a passage from / 'Paradise Lost' as a rondeau. " -- GEORGE SOULE in the _New / Republic_.)
"PARADISE LOST"
Sing, Heavenly Muse, in lines that flow / More smoothly than the wandering Po, / Of man's descending from the height / Of Heaven itself, the blue, the bright, / To Hell's unutterable throe.
Of sin original and the woe / That fell upon us here below / From man's pomonic primal bite -- / Sing, Heavenly Muse!
Of summer sun, of winter snow, / Of future days, of long ago, / Of morning and "the shades of night,"
Of woman, "my ever new delight,"
Go to it, Muse, and put us joe -- / Sing, Heavenly Muse!
"THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER"
The wedding guest sat on a stone, / He could not choose but hear / The mariner. They were there alone.
The wedding guest sat on a stone.
"I'll read you something of my own,"
Declared that mariner.
The wedding guest sat on a stone -- / He could not choose but hear.