POUND, Ezra


Alba

As cool as the pale wet leaves

of lily-of-the-valley

She lay beside me in the dawn.


And the days are not full enough

And the days are not full enough

And the nights are not full enough

And life slips by like a field mouse

Not shaking the grass


The Rest

O helpless few in my country, remnant enslaved!

Artists broken against her,

A-stray, lost in the villages,

Mistrusted, spoken-against,

Lovers of beauty, starved,

Thwarted with systems,

Helpless against the control;

You who cannot wear yourselves out

By persisting to successes,

You who can only speak,

Who cannot steel yourselves into reiteration;

You of the finer sense,

Broken against false knowledge,

You who can know at first hand,

Hated, shut in, mistrusted:

Take thought:

I have weathered the storm,

I have beaten out my exile.


Salutation

O generation of the thoroughly smug

and thoroughly uncomfortable,

I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,

I have seen them with untidy families,

I have seen their smiles full of teeth

and heard ungainly laughter.

And I am happier than you are,

And they were happier than I am;

And the fish swim in the lake

and do not even own clothing.


To-Em-Mei’s «The Unmoving Cloud»

“Wet spring time,' says To-em-mei, 'Wet spring in the garden.”

I

The clouds have gathered and gathered,

and the rain falls and falls,

The eight ply of the heavens

are all folded into one darkness,

And the wide flat road stretches out.

I stop in my room towards the East, quiet, quiet,

I pat my new cask of wine.

My friends are estranged, or far distant,

I bow my head and stand still.

II

Rain, rain, and the clouds have gathered,

The eight ply of the heavens are darkness,

The flat land is turned into river.

“Wine, wine, wine, here is wine!”

I drink by my eastern window.

I think of talking and man,

And no boat, no carriage approaches.

III

The trees in my east-looking garden

are bursting out with new twigs,

They try to stir new affection,

And men say the sun and moon keep on moving

because they can’t find a soft seat.

The birds flutter to rest in my tree

and I think I have heard them saying,

It is not that there are no other men

But we like this fellow the best,

But however we long to speak

He cannot know of our sorrow.


Sestina: Altaforte

(…)

Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.

You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let's to music!

I have no life save when the swords clash.

But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing

And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,

Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.

II

In hot summer have I great rejoicing

When the tempests kill the earth's foul peace,

And the lightnings from black heav'n flash crimson,

And the fierce thunders roar me their music

And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,

And through all the riven skies God's swords clash.

III

Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!

And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,

Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!

Better one hour's stour than a year's peace

With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!

Bah! there's no wine like the blood's crimson!

IV

And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.

And I watch his spears through the dark clash

And it fills all my heart with rejoicing

And pries wide my mouth with fast music

When I see him so scorn and defy peace,

His lone might 'gainst all darkness opposing.

V

The man who fears war and squats opposing

My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson

But is fit only to rot in womanish peace

Far from where worth's won and the swords clash

For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;

Yea, I fill all the air with my music.

VI

Papiols, Papiols, to the music!

There's no sound like to swords swords opposing,

No cry like the battle's rejoicing

When our elbows and swords drip the crimson

And our charges 'gainst "The Leopard's" rush clash.

May God damn for ever all who cry "Peace!"

VII

And let the music of the swords make them crimson!

Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!

Hell blot black for always the thought "Peace!"


Portrait d'une Femme

Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,

London has swept about you this score years

And bright ships left you this or that in fee:

Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,

Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.

Great minds have sought you — lacking someone else.

You have been second always. Tragical?

No. You preferred it to the usual thing:

One dull man, dulling and uxorious,

One average mind — with one thought less, each year.

Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit

Hours, where something might have floated up.

And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.

You are a person of some interest, one comes to you

And takes strange gain away:

Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;

Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,

Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else

That might prove useful and yet never proves,

That never fits a corner or shows use,

Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:

The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;

Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,

These are your riches, your great store; and yet

For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,

Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:

In the slow float of differing light and deep,

No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,

Nothing that's quite your own.

Yet this is you .

/////////////////////////////////////////////////


And New York is the most beautiful city in the world?

It is not far from it.

No urban night is like the night there.

Squares after squares of flame,

set up and cut into the aether.

Here is our poetry,

for we have pulled down the stars to our will


/////////////////////////////////////////////////


Francesca

You came in out of the night

And there were flowers in your hands,

Now you will come out of a confusion of people,

Out of a turmoil of speech about you.

I who have seen you amid the primal things

Was angry when they spoke your name

In ordinary places.

I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,

And that the world should dry as a dead leaf,

Or as a dandelion seed-pod and be swept away,

So that I might find you again,

Alone.

The Return

See, they return; ah, see the tentative

Movements, and the slow feet,

The trouble in the pace and the uncertain

Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one,

With fear, as half-awakened;

As if the snow should hesitate

And murmur in the wind,

and half turn back;

These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"

inviolable.

Gods of the wingèd shoe!

With them the silver hounds,

sniffing the trace of air!

Haie! Haie!

These were the swift to harry;

These the keen-scented;

These were the souls of blood.

Slow on the leash,

pallid the leash-men!


Pisan Cantos

…..

The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world.

Pull down thy vanity, it is not man

Made courage, or made order, or made grace,

Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.

Learn of the green world what can be thy place

In scaled invention or true artistry,

Pull down thy vanity,

Paquin pull down!

The green casque has outdone your elegance.

…..


The Garden

En robe de parade. Samain *

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall

She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,

And she is dying piece-meal

of a sort of emotional anaemia.

And round about there is a rabble

Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.

They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.

Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.

She would like some one to speak to her,

And is almost afraid that I

will commit that indiscretion.

¨*Albert Samain = French poet


La Regina Avrillouse

Lady of rich allure,

Queen of the spring's embrace,

Your arms are long like boughs of ash,

Mid laugh-broken streams, spirit of rain unsure,

Breath of the poppy flower,

All the wood thy bower

And the hills thy dwelling-place.

This will I no more dream;

Warm is thy arm's allure,

Warm is the gust of breath

That ere thy lips meet mine

Kisseth my cheek and saith:

"This is the joy of earth,

Here is the wine of mirth

Drain ye one goblet sure,

Take ye the honey cup

The honied song raise up,

Drink of the spring's allure,

April and dew and rain;

Brown of the earth sing sure,

Cheeks and lips and hair

And soft breath that kisseth where

Thy lips have come not yet to drink."

Moss and the mold of earth,

These be thy couch of mirth,

Long arms thy boughs of shade

April-alluring, as the blade

Of grass doth catch the dew

And make it crown to hold the sun.

Banner be you

Above my head,

Glory to all wold display'd,

April-alluring, glory-bold.


The Temperaments

Nine adulteries, 12 liaisons, 64 fornications and something approaching a rape

Rest nightly upon the soul of our delicate friend Florialis,

And yet the man is so quiet and reserved in demeanour

That he passes for both bloodless and sexless.

Bastidides, on the contrary, who both talks and writes of nothing save copulation,

Has become the father of twins,

But he accomplished this feat at some cost;

He had to be four times cuckold.

Masks

These tales of old disguisings, are they not

Strange myths of souls that found themselves among

Unwonted folk that spake an hostile tongue,

Some soul from all the rest who'd not forgot

The star-span acres of a former lot

Where boundless mid the clouds his course he swung,

Or carnate with his elder brothers sung

Ere ballad-makers lisped of Camelot?

Old singers half-forgetful of their tunes,

Old painters color-blind come back once more,

Old poets skill-less in the wind-heart runes,

Old wizards lacking in their wonder-lore:

All they that with strange sadness in their eyes

Ponder in silence o'er earth's queynt devyse?

Ballatetta

The light became her grace and dwelt among

Blind eyes and shadows that are formed as men;

Lo, how the light doth melt us into song:

The broken sunlight for a healm she beareth

Who has my heart in jurisdiction.

In wild-wood never fawn nor allow fareth

So silent light; no gossamer is spun

So delicate as she is, when the sun

Drives the clear emeralds from the bended grasses

Lest they should parch too swiftly, where she passes


The Garrett

Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are.

Come, my friend, and remember

that the rich have butlers and no friends,

And we have friends and no butlers.

Come, let us pity the married and the unmarried.

Dawn enters with little feet

like a gilded Pavlova

And I am near my desire.

Nor has life in it aught* better

Than this hour of clear coolness

the hour of waking together.

* anything

Hugh Selwyn Mauberly

…..

IV

These fought in any case,

and some believing,

pro domo, in any case . . .

Some quick to arm,

some for adventure,

some from fear of weakness,

some from fear of censure,

some for love of slaughter, in imagination,

learning later . . .

some in fear, learning love of slaughter;

Died some, pro patria,

non "dulce" non "et decor" . . .

walked eye-deep in hell

believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving

came home, home to a lie,

home to many deceits,

home to old lies and new infamy;

usury age-old and age-thick

and liars in public places.

Daring as never before, wastage as never before.

Young blood and high blood,

fair cheeks, and fine bodies;

fortitude as never before

frankness as never before,

disillusions as never told in the old days,

hysterias, trench confessions,

laughter out of dead bellies.

V

There died a myriad,

And of the best, among them,

For an old bitch gone in the teeth,

For a botched civilization,

Charm, smiling at the good mouth,

Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,

For two gross of broken statues,

For a few thousand battered books.

…..


Canto XLV

With Usura

With usura hath no man a house of good stone

each block cut smooth and well fitting

that design might cover their face,

with usura

hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall

harpes et luz

or where virgin receiveth message

and halo projects from incision,

with usura

seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines

no picture is made to endure nor to live with

but it is made to sell and sell quickly

with usura, sin against nature,

is thy bread ever more of stale rags

is thy bread dry as paper,

with no mountain wheat, no strong flour

with usura the line grows thick

with usura is no clear demarcation

and no man can find site for his dwelling.

Stonecutter is kept from his stone

weaver is kept from his loom

WITH USURA

wool comes not to market

sheep bringeth no gain with usura

Usura is a murrain, usura

blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand

and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo

came not by usura

Duccio came not by usura

nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura

nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted.

Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,

Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.

Not by usura St. Trophime

Not by usura Saint Hilaire,

Usura rusteth the chisel

It rusteth the craft and the craftsman

It gnaweth the thread in the loom

None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;

Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered

Emerald findeth no Memling

Usura slayeth the child in the womb

It stayeth the young man’s courting

It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth

between the young bride and her bridegroom

CONTRA NATURAM

They have brought whores for Eleusis

Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.


Ballad of the Goodly Fere

Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion. Fere=Mate, Companion.

Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' all

For the priests and the gallows tree?

Aye lover he was of brawny men,

O' ships and the open sea.

When they came wi' a host to take Our Man

His smile was good to see,

"First let these go!" quo' our Goodly Fere,

"Or I'll see ye damned," says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears

And the scorn of his laugh rang free,

"Why took ye not me when I walked about

Alone in the town?" says he.

Oh we drank his "Hale" in the good red wine

When we last made company,

No capon priest was the Goodly Fere

But a man o' men was he.

I ha' seen him drive a hundred men

Wi' a bundle o' cords swung free,

That they took the high and holy house

For their pawn and treasury.

They'll no' get him a' in a book I think

Though they write it cunningly;

No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere

But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha' snared our Goodly Fere

They are fools to the last degree.

"I'll go to the feast," quo' our Goodly Fere,

"Though I go to the gallows tree."

"Ye ha' seen me heal the lame and blind,

And wake the dead," says he,

"Ye shall see one thing to master all:

'Tis how a brave man dies on the tree."

A son of God was the Goodly Fere

That bade us his brothers be.

I ha' seen him cow a thousand men.

I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails

And the blood gushed hot and free,

The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue

But never a cry cried he.

I ha' seen him cow a thousand men

On the hills o' Galilee,

They whined as he walked out calm between,

Wi' his eyes like the grey o' the sea,

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging

With the winds unleashed and free,

Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret

Wi' twey words spoke' suddently.

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,

A mate of the wind and sea,

If they think they ha' slain our Goodly Fere

They are fools eternally.

I ha' seen him eat o' the honey-comb

Sin' they nailed him to the tree.


Lament Of The Frontier Guard

By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand,

Lonely from the beginning of time until now!

Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn.

I climb the towers and towers

to watch out the barbarous land:

Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert.

There is no wall left to this village.

Bones white with a thousand frosts,

High heaps, covered with trees and grass;

Who brought this to pass?

Who has brought the flaming imperial anger?

Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums?

Barbarous kings.

A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn,

A turmoil of wars - men, spread over the middle kingdom,

Three hundred and sixty thousand,

And sorrow, sorrow like rain.

Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning,

Desolate, desolate fields,

And no children of warfare upon them,

No longer the men for offence and defence.

Ah, how shall you know the dreary sorrow at the North Gate,

With Rihoku's name forgotten,

And we guardsmen fed to the tigers.

[Li Po?]


Canto I

And then went down to the ship,

Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and

We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,

Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also

Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward

Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,

Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.

Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,

Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.

Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,

Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,

To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities

Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever

With glitter of sun-rays

Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven

Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.

The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place

Aforesaid by Circe.

Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,

And drawing sword from my hip

I dug the ell-square pitkin;

Poured we libations unto each the dead,

First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour.

Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-heads;

As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best

For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,

A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.

Dark blood flowed in the fosse,

Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides

Of youths and of the old who had borne much;

Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,

Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,

Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,

These many crowded about me; with shouting,

Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;

Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;

Poured ointment, cried to the gods,

To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;

Unsheathed the narrow sword,

I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,

Till I should hear Tiresias.

But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,

Unburied, cast on the wide earth,

Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,

Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other.

Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech:

“Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?

“Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?”

And he in heavy speech:

“Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe’s ingle.

“Going down the long ladder unguarded,

“I fell against the buttress,

“Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.

“But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,

“Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:

“A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.

“And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.”

And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,

Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:

“A second time? why? man of ill star,

“Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?

“Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever

“For soothsay.”

And I stepped back,

And he strong with the blood, said then: “Odysseus

“Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,

“Lose all companions.” And then Anticlea came.

Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus,

In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.

And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away

And unto Circe.

…..


The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter

After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.

You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,

You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.

And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:

Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever, and forever.

Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed

You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,

And you have been gone five months.

The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,

Too deep to clear them away!

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August

Over the grass in the West garden;

They hurt me.

I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,

And I will come out to meet you

As far as Chō-fū-Sa.


Dance figure

For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee

Dark eyed,

O woman of my dreams,

Ivory sandalled,

There is none like thee among the dancers,

None with swift feet.

I have not found thee in the tents,

In the broken darkness.

I have not found thee at the well-head

Among the women with pitchers.

Thine arms are as young sapling under the bark;

Thy face is a river with lights.

White as an almond are thy shoulders;

As new almonds stripped from the husk.

They guard thee not with enunchs;

Not with bars of copper.

Gilt turquoise and silver are in the pIace of thy resto

A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in patterns, hast thou

gathered about thee,

O Nathat-Ikanaie, "Tree at the river".

As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me;

Thy fingers a frosted stream.

Thy maidens are white like pebbles;

Their music about thee!

There is none like thee among the dancers;

None with swift feet.

What Thou Lovest Well Remains

…..
What thou lovest well remains,

the rest is dross

What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee

What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage

Whose world, or mine or theirs

or is it of none?

First came the seen, then thus the palpable

Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,

What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage

What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.

Pull down thy vanity, it is not man

Made courage, or made order, or made grace,

Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.

Learn of the green world what can be thy place

In scaled invention or true artistry,

Pull down thy vanity ,

Paquin pull down!

The green casque has outdone your elegance.

'Master thyself, then others shall thee beare'

Pull down thy vanity

"Master thyself, then others shall thee beare"

Pull down thy vanity

Thou art a beaten dog beneath the hail,

A swollen magpie in a fitful sun,

Half black half white

Nor knowst'ou wing from tail

Pull down thy vanity

How mean thy hates

Fostered in falsity,

Pull down thy vanity,

Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity,

Pull down thy vanity,

I say pull down.

But to have done instead of not doing

This is not vanity

To have, with decency, knocked

That a Blunt should open

To have gathered from the air a live tradition

or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame

this is not vanity.

Here error is all in the not done,

all in the diffidence that faltered . . .
…..


Commission

GO, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,

Go also to the nerve-wracked, go to the enslaved-by-convention,

Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.

Go as a great wave of cool water,

Bear my contempt of oppressors.

Speak against unconscious oppression,

Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,

Speak against bonds.

Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of her ennuis,

Go to the women in suburbs.
Go to the hideously wedded,

Go to them whose failure is concealed,

Go to the unluckily mated,

Go to the bought wife,

Go to the woman entailed.

Go to those who have delicate lust,

Go to those whose delicate desires are thwarted,

Go like a blight upon the dulness of the world;

Go with your edge against this,

Strengthen the subtle cords,

Bring confidence upon the algae and the tentacles of the soul.

Go in a friendly manner,

Go with an open speech.

Be eager to find new evils and new good,

Be against all forms of oppression.

Go to those who are thickened with middle age,

To those who have lost their interest.

Go to the adolescent who are smothered in family—

Oh how hideous it is

To see three generations of one house gathered together!

It is like an old tree with shoots,

And with some branches rotted and falling.

Go out and defy opinion,

Go against this vegetable bondage of the blood.

Speak for the free kinship of the mind and spirit

Go, against all forms of oppression.