I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman -
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root -
Let there be commerce between us.
Thanks to Whitman, Pound is now free from the constraining rules of traditional poetry. He can use the “new wood” of poetic style that Whitman cut a path into–and carve it into something great. 
 A cynical critic would say that this is a self-serving interpretation of Whitman’s legacy: Walt laid the groundwork, now Ezra can do the  real  work. Pound was never known for his humility.