The Nonconformist Poem by Donald Alfred Davie

X, whom society's most mild command,
For instance evening dress, infuriates,

In art is seen confusingly to stand

For disciplined conformity, with Yeats.



Taxed to explain what this resentment is

He feels for small proprieties, it comes,

He likes to think, from old enormities

And keeps the faith with famous martyrdoms.



Yet it is likely, if indeed the crimes

His fathers suffered rankle in his blood,

That he find least excusable the times

When they acceded, not when they withstood.



How else explain this bloody-minded bent

To kick against the prickings of the norm;

When to conform is easy, to dissent;

And when it is most difficult, conform?