Let us leave this matter, my songs,
and return to that which concerns us.
and return to that which concerns us.
Ezra-Pound-Lustra
?
STRA
EZRA
? CAS* 8
? LUSTRA OF EZRA POUND
? EZRA POUND.
? LUSTRA OF
EZRA POUND
" Definition LUSTRUM
an offering for the sins of the whole made by the censors at the expiration of their
:
Elementary Latin Dictionary of Charlton T. Lewis.
Eevoeple, of office. " years
200 copies privately printed\ of which this is No, . . I / /
? CERTAIN of these poems have appeared in Poetry, Blast, Poetry and Drama, Smart Set, and Others^ to the editors of which magazines the author
wishes to make due acknowledgment.
E. P.
? V. L.
Cm ofowo lepidum novum libellum.
L CAS6 .
? Tenzone
The Condolence . . . . The Garret
The Garden
Ortus
Salutation
Salutation the Second . The Spring
Albatre
Causa
Commission
A Pact
PAGE PAGE 9 The Bath Tub . . . . 38 10 Amities 39 11 Meditatio 41 12 To Dives 41 13 Ladies 42 14 Phyllidula 44
15 The Patterns 17 Coda
18 The Seeing Eye . . . . 18 Ancora
19 " Dompna pois de me no'us 21 cal"
22 The Coming of War : 23 Actaeon
v Surgit Fama ^Preference
Dance Figure
April
Gentildonna
The Best
Les Millwin Further Instructions
A Song of the Degrees . Ite
Dum Capitolium Scandet .
. . . . . .
To KaXov
The Study in Aesthetics .
The Bellaires
The New Cake of Soap. .
Tempora
Salvationists
Epitaph Arides.
. . . .
37
. . . .
37
CONTENTS
.
. . . .
26 LiuCh'e
.
.
.
. . .
26 Fan-piece, for her Imperial 27 Lord
28 Ts'aiChi'h
29 In a Station of the Metro . 30 Alba
31 Heather
31 The Faun
31 Coitus
32 The Encounter . . . . 33
24 After Ch'u Yuan
35 Black Slippers : 36
Bellotti .
? " lone, Dead the Long Year"
ip-tppv
Shop Girl
To Formianus' Young Lady
PAOE
57 Lament of the Frontier
58 Guard 86 58 Exile's Letter . . . .
Four Poems of Departure 59 Separation on the Biver
60 Kiang 93 60 Taking Leave of a
61 Friend . . . . 93 61 Leave - taking near
62 Shoku 94
Friend Tame Cat
I/Art, 1910
Simulacra
Women before a Shop . Epilogue
The Social Order
The Tea Shop Epitaphs
Our Contemporaries Ancient Wisdom, Bather
Cosmic 66
. . .
The Gipsy 67
Sennin Poem by Kakuhaku 97 A Ballad of the Mulberry
Boad 98 Old Idea of Choan by
Bosoriu 99 To-Em-Mei's "The Un-
movingCloud" . . . 101
The Three Poets
66
The Game of Chess . . . ProvinciaDeserta . . .
CATHAY
Song of the Bowmen of
68 69
. . . . . . .
63 The City of Choan.
64 South Folk in Cold
95
Shu 75 The Beautiful Toilet. . TheBiverSong . . . The Biver Merchant's
112
To a Friend Writing on Cabaret Dancers . . . 117
Homage to Quintus Septi-
Wife: ALetter . . 81 The Jewel Stairs'
Grievance . . . . Poem by the Bridge at
83
mius Florentis
tianus
Fish and the Shadow
Chris -
121 , 123
Ten-Shin 84
. .
66
.
CONTENTS
65 Country 96
. . . . Villanelle : The Psychologi-
103
NearPerigord
cal Hour
77 Dans un Omnibus de
78 Londres 115
.
88
? LUSTRA OF EZRA POUND
Tenzone
WILL people accept them ? (i. e. these songs).
As a timorous wench from a centaur (or a centurion),
Already they flee, howling in terror.
Will they be touched with the verisimilitudes ?
Their virgin stupidity is untemptable,
I beg you, my friendly critics,
Do not set about to procure me an audience.
I mate with my free kind upon the crags ; the hidden recesses
Have heard the echo of my heels, in the cool light,
in the darkness.
9
? The Condolence
A mis soledades voy>
De mis soledades vengo, Porque por andar conmigo Mi bastan mis pensamientos.
Lope de Vega. O MY fellow sufferers, songs of my youth,
A lot of asses because praise you
are " !
you We are " Red Bloods "
virile,"
We, you, I !
Imagine it, my fellow sufferers
Our maleness lifts us out of the ruck,
Who'd have foreseen it ?
O my fellow sufferers, we went out under the
trees,
We were in especial bored with male stupidity.
We went forth gathering delicate thoughts,
Our " " to serve us. fantastikon delighted
We were not exasperated with women, for the female is ductile.
And now you hear what is said to us : We are compared to that sort of person Who wanders about announcing his sex As if he had just discovered it.
Let us leave this matter, my songs,
and return to that which concerns us.
10
? The Garret
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 T am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better Than this hour of clear coolness,
the hour of waking together.
11
? The Garden
En robe de parade. Sainain.
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 someone to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
12
? Ortus
How have I laboured ? How have I not laboured
To bring her soul to birth,
To give these elements a name and a centre !
She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.
She has no name, and no place.
How have I laboured to bring her soul into
separation ;
To give her a name and her being !
Surely you are bound and entwined,
You are mingled with the elements unborn ; I have loved a stream and a shadow.
I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech
you
learn to " I " say
When I question you :
For you are no part, but a whole ;
No portion, but a being.
13
? Salutation
GENERATION of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable, 1 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.
14
? Salutation the Second
You were praised, my books,
because I had just come from the country ;
I was twenty years behind the times so you found an audience ready.
I do not disown you,
do not you disown your progeny.
Here they stand without quaint devices,
Here they are with nothing archaic about them.
Watch the reporters spit,
Watch the anger of the professors, Watch how the pretty ladies revile them :
" Is
" the nonsense
this," they say,
that we expect of poets ?
"
"" Where is the vertigo of emotion ?
" No ! his first work was the best. "
" Poor Dear ! he has lost his illusions. "
15
"" Where is the Picturesque ?
? SALUTATION THE SECOND
Go, little naked and impudent songs, Go with a light foot !
(Or with two light feet, if it please you ! )
Go and dance shamelessly !
Go with an impertinent frolic !
Greet the grave and the stodgy,
Salute them with your thumbs at your noses.
Here are your bells and confetti.
Go ! rejuvenate things !
Rejuvenate even " The Spectator. " Go ! and make cat calls !
Dance and make people blush, Dance the dance of the phallus
and tell anecdotes of Cybele !
Speak of the indecorous conduct of the Gods !
(Tell it to Mr. Strachey. )
Ruffle the skirts of prudes,
speak of their knees and ankles.
But, above all, go to practical people go ! jangle their door-bells !
Let us leave this matter, my songs,
and return to that which concerns us.
10
? The Garret
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 T am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better Than this hour of clear coolness,
the hour of waking together.
11
? The Garden
En robe de parade. Sainain.
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 someone to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
12
? Ortus
How have I laboured ? How have I not laboured
To bring her soul to birth,
To give these elements a name and a centre !
She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.
She has no name, and no place.
How have I laboured to bring her soul into
separation ;
To give her a name and her being !
Surely you are bound and entwined,
You are mingled with the elements unborn ; I have loved a stream and a shadow.
I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech
you
learn to " I " say
When I question you :
For you are no part, but a whole ;
No portion, but a being.
13
? Salutation
GENERATION of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable, 1 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.
14
? Salutation the Second
You were praised, my books,
because I had just come from the country ;
I was twenty years behind the times so you found an audience ready.
I do not disown you,
do not you disown your progeny.
Here they stand without quaint devices,
Here they are with nothing archaic about them.
Watch the reporters spit,
Watch the anger of the professors, Watch how the pretty ladies revile them :
" Is
" the nonsense
this," they say,
that we expect of poets ?
"
"" Where is the vertigo of emotion ?
" No ! his first work was the best. "
" Poor Dear ! he has lost his illusions. "
15
"" Where is the Picturesque ?
? SALUTATION THE SECOND
Go, little naked and impudent songs, Go with a light foot !
(Or with two light feet, if it please you ! )
Go and dance shamelessly !
Go with an impertinent frolic !
Greet the grave and the stodgy,
Salute them with your thumbs at your noses.
Here are your bells and confetti.
Go ! rejuvenate things !
Rejuvenate even " The Spectator. " Go ! and make cat calls !
Dance and make people blush, Dance the dance of the phallus
and tell anecdotes of Cybele !
Speak of the indecorous conduct of the Gods !
(Tell it to Mr. Strachey. )
Ruffle the skirts of prudes,
speak of their knees and ankles.
But, above all, go to practical people go ! jangle their door-bells !
Say that you do no work
and that you will live forever.
16
? The Spring
CYDONIAN spring with her attendant train,
Maelids and water-girls,
Stepping beneath a boisterous wind from Thrace,
Throughout this sylvan place
Spreads the bright tips, And every vine-stock is
Clad in new brilliancies.
Falls like black lightning.
O bewildered heart,
Though every branch have back what last year
lost,
She, who moved here amid the cyclamen,
Moves only now a clinging tenuous ghost.
17
And wild desire
? Albatre
THIS lady in the white bath-robe which she calls
a peignoir
Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend,
And the delicate white feet of her little white
dog
Are not more delicate than she is,
Nor would Gautier himself have despised their contrasts in whiteness
As she sits in the great chair Between the two indolent candles.
Causa
I JOIN these words for four people, Some others may overhear them,
O world, I am sorry for you,
You do not know these four people.
18
? 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.
19 c2
? COMMISSION
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. Be against all sorts of mortmain.
20
? A Pact
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.
21
? Surgit Fama
THERE is a truce among the gods, Kore is seen in the North
Skirting the blue-gray sea In gilded and russet mantle.
The corn has again its mother and she, Leuconoe, That failed never women,
Fails not the earth now.
The tricksome Hermes is here ; He moves behind me
Eager to catch my words,
Eager to spread them with rumour ;
To set upon them his change
Crafty and subtle ;
To alter them to his purpose ;
But do thou speak true, even to the letter :
" Once more in Delos, once more is the altar
a-quiver.
Once more is the chant heard.
Once more are the never abandoned gardens Full of gossip and old tales. "
22
? Preference
IT is true that you say the gods are more use to
you than fairies,
But for all that I have seen you
on a high, white, noble horse, Like some strange queen in a story.
It is odd that you should be covered with long robes
and trailing tendrils and flowers ;
It is odd that you should be changing your face
and resembling some other woman to
plague me ;
It is odd that you should be hiding yourself
In the cloud of beautiful women who do not concern me.
And I, who follow every seed-leaf upon the wind ? You will say that I deserve this.
23
? Dance Figure
For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee
DARK eyed,
woman of my dreams,
Ivory sandaled,
There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet.
1 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 a young sapling under the
bark;
Thy face as a river with lights.
White as an almond are thy shoulders ; As new almonds stripped from the husk.
They guard thee not with eunuchs ; Not with bars of copper.
24
? DANCE FIGURE
Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest.
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.
25
? April
Nympharum membra disjecta.
THREE spirits came to me And drew me apart
To where the olive boughs
Lay stripped upon the ground : Pale carnage beneath bright mist.
Gentildonna
SHE passed and left no quiver in the veins, who now
Moving among the trees, and clinging
in the air she severed,
Fanning the grass she walked on then, endures : Grey olive leaves beneath a rain-cold sky.
26
? The Rest
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 can not wear yourselves out By persisting to successes,
You who can only speak,
Who can not 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 :
1 have weathered the storm,
I have beaten out my exile.
27
? Les Millwin
THE little Millwins attend the Russian Ballet. The mauve and greenish souls of the little
Millwins
Were seen lying along the upper seats Like so many unused boas.
The turbulent and undisciplined host of art students
The rigorous deputation from " Slade " Was before them.
With arms exalted, with fore-arms
Crossed in great futuristic X's, the art students
Exulted, they beheld the splendours of Cleopatra.
And the little Millwins beheld these things ;
With their large and anaemic eyes they looked
out upon this configuration.
Let us therefore mention the fact, For it seems to us worthy of record.
28
? Further Instructions
COME, my songs, let us express our baser passions, Let us express our envy of the man with a steady
job
and no worry about the future.
You are very idle, my songs.
I fear you will come to a bad end.
You stand about in the streets,
You loiter at the corners and bus-stops You do next to nothing at all.
You do not even express our inner nobilities, You will come to a very bad end.
And I?
I have gone half cracked,
I have talked to you so much that
I almost see you about me, Insolent little beasts, shameless, devoid of
clothing !
But you, newest song of the lot,
You are not old enough to have done much
mischief,
I will get you a green coat out of China
With dragons worked upon it,
I will get you the scarlet silk trousers
From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa
Maria Novella,
Lest they say we are lacking in taste, Or that there is no caste in this family.
29
? A Song of the Degrees
REST me with Chinese colours, For I think the glass is evil.
II
The wind moves above the wheat With a silver crashing,
A thin war of metal.
I have known the golden disc,
I have seen it melting above me.
I have known the stone-bright place, The hall of clear colours.
Ill
O glass subtly evil, confusion of colours !
O light bound and bent in, soul of the captive, WhyamIwarned? WhyamIsentaway? Why is your glitter full of curious mistrust ?
O glass subtle and cunning, O powdery gold ! O filaments of amber, two-faced iridescence !
30
? Ite
Go, my songs, seek your praise from the young and from the intolerant,
Move among the lovers of perfection alone. Seek ever to stand in the hard Sophoclean light And take your wounds from it gladly.
Dum Capitolium ScanJet
How many will come after me
singing as well as I sing, none better ;
Telling the heart of their truth
as I have taught them to tell it ;
Fruit of my seed,
my unnameable children.
Know then that I loved you from afore-time, Clear speakers, naked in the sun, untrammelled,
To KaXoV
EVEN in my dreams you have denied yourself to me
And sent me only your handmaids. 31
? The Study in Aesthetics
THE very small children in patched clothing, Being smitten with an unusual wisdom,
Stopped in their play as she passed them And cried up from their cobbles :
Guarda I Ahi, guarda I ch' e be'a ! *
But three years after this
I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do
not know
For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young Dantes and thirty-four Catulli ;
And there had been a great catch of sardines, And his elders
Were packing them in the great wooden boxes For the market in Brescia, and he
Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish And getting in both of their ways ;
And in vain they commanded him to sta fermo ! And when they would not let him arrange
The fish in the boxes
He stroked those which were already arranged,
Murmuring for his own satisfaction This identical phrase :
Ch' e be'a.
And at this I was mildly abashed.
*
32
Bella.
? The Bellaires
Aus meinen grossen Schmerzen Mach' ich die kleinen Licder.
THE good Bellaires
Do not understand the conduct of this world's
affairs.
In fact they understood them so badly That they have had to cross the Channel.
Nine lawyers, four counsels, five judges and three proctors of the King,
Together with the respective wives, husbands, sisters and heterogeneous connections of the
good Bellaires,
Met to discuss their affairs ;
But the good Bellaires have so little understood
their affairs
That now there is no one at all
Who can understand any affair of theirs. Yet Fourteen hunters still eat in the stables of The good Squire Bellaire ;
But these may not suffer attainder,
33 D
? THE BELLAIRES
For they may not belong to the good Squire Bellaire
But to his wife.
On the contrary, if they do not belong to his wife,
He will plead
A " freedom from attainder "
For twelve horses and also for twelve boarhounds From Charles the Fourth ;
And a further freedom for the remainder
Of horses, from Henry the Fourth.
But the judges,
Being free of medieval scholarship, Will pay no attention to this,
And there will be only the more confusion, Replevin, estoppel, espavin and what not.
Nine lawyers, four counsels, etc. ,
Met to discuss their affairs,
But the sole result was bills
From lawyers to whom no one was indebted, And even the lawyers
Were uncertain who was supposed to be indebted to them.
Wherefore the good Squire Bellaire Resides now at Agde and Biaucaire.
To Carcassonne, Pui, and Alais He fareth from day to day, 34
? THE BELLAIRES
Or takes the sea air Between Marseilles And Beziers.
And for all this I have considerable regret, For the good Bellaires
Are very charming people.
The New Cake of Soap
Lo, how it gleams and glistens in the sun Like the cheek of a Chesterton.
35
? Salvationists
COME, my songs, let us speak of perfection We shall get ourselves rather disliked.
II
Ah yes, my songs, let us resurrect The very excellent term Rusticus.
Let us apply it in all its opprobrium To those to whom it applies.
And you may decline to make them immortal. For we shall consider them and their state
In delicate Opulent silence.
Ill
Come, my songs,
Let us take arms against this sea of stupidities-
Begining with Mumpodorus ;
And against this sea of vulgarities
Beginning with Nimmim ;
And against this sea of imbeciles
All the Bulmenian literati.
36
? Epitaph
LETJCIS, who intended a Grand Passion, Ends with a willingness-to-oblige.
Andes
THE bashful Arides
Has married an ugly wife,
He was bored with his manner of life,
Indifferent and discouraged he thought he might as
Well do this as anything else.
Saying within his heart, " I am no use to myself, " Let her, if she wants me, take me. "
He went to his doom.
37
? The Bath Tub
As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
O my much praised but-not-altogether-satis- factory lady.
? Amities
Old friends the most. w. B. y.
To one, on returning certain years after. You wore the same quite correct clothing,
You took no pleasure at all in my triumphs, You had the same old air of condescension
Mingled with a curious fear
That I, myself, might have enjoyed them.
Te voila, man Bourrienne, you also shall be immortal.
II
To another.
And we say good-bye to you also,
For you seem never to have discovered
That your relationship is wholly parasitic ; Yet to our feasts you bring neither
Wit, nor good spirits, nor the pleasing attitudes
Of discipleship.
39
? AMITIES
III
But you, bos amic, we keep on, Fortoyouweowearealdebt:
In spite of your obvious flaws,
You once discovered a moderate chop-house.
IV
Iste fuit vir incultus,
Deo laus, quod est sepultus, Vermes habent eius vultum
Ego autem jovialis Gaudero contubernalis
Cum jocunda femina.
40
A-a-a-a A-men.
?
EZRA
? CAS* 8
? LUSTRA OF EZRA POUND
? EZRA POUND.
? LUSTRA OF
EZRA POUND
" Definition LUSTRUM
an offering for the sins of the whole made by the censors at the expiration of their
:
Elementary Latin Dictionary of Charlton T. Lewis.
Eevoeple, of office. " years
200 copies privately printed\ of which this is No, . . I / /
? CERTAIN of these poems have appeared in Poetry, Blast, Poetry and Drama, Smart Set, and Others^ to the editors of which magazines the author
wishes to make due acknowledgment.
E. P.
? V. L.
Cm ofowo lepidum novum libellum.
L CAS6 .
? Tenzone
The Condolence . . . . The Garret
The Garden
Ortus
Salutation
Salutation the Second . The Spring
Albatre
Causa
Commission
A Pact
PAGE PAGE 9 The Bath Tub . . . . 38 10 Amities 39 11 Meditatio 41 12 To Dives 41 13 Ladies 42 14 Phyllidula 44
15 The Patterns 17 Coda
18 The Seeing Eye . . . . 18 Ancora
19 " Dompna pois de me no'us 21 cal"
22 The Coming of War : 23 Actaeon
v Surgit Fama ^Preference
Dance Figure
April
Gentildonna
The Best
Les Millwin Further Instructions
A Song of the Degrees . Ite
Dum Capitolium Scandet .
. . . . . .
To KaXov
The Study in Aesthetics .
The Bellaires
The New Cake of Soap. .
Tempora
Salvationists
Epitaph Arides.
. . . .
37
. . . .
37
CONTENTS
.
. . . .
26 LiuCh'e
.
.
.
. . .
26 Fan-piece, for her Imperial 27 Lord
28 Ts'aiChi'h
29 In a Station of the Metro . 30 Alba
31 Heather
31 The Faun
31 Coitus
32 The Encounter . . . . 33
24 After Ch'u Yuan
35 Black Slippers : 36
Bellotti .
? " lone, Dead the Long Year"
ip-tppv
Shop Girl
To Formianus' Young Lady
PAOE
57 Lament of the Frontier
58 Guard 86 58 Exile's Letter . . . .
Four Poems of Departure 59 Separation on the Biver
60 Kiang 93 60 Taking Leave of a
61 Friend . . . . 93 61 Leave - taking near
62 Shoku 94
Friend Tame Cat
I/Art, 1910
Simulacra
Women before a Shop . Epilogue
The Social Order
The Tea Shop Epitaphs
Our Contemporaries Ancient Wisdom, Bather
Cosmic 66
. . .
The Gipsy 67
Sennin Poem by Kakuhaku 97 A Ballad of the Mulberry
Boad 98 Old Idea of Choan by
Bosoriu 99 To-Em-Mei's "The Un-
movingCloud" . . . 101
The Three Poets
66
The Game of Chess . . . ProvinciaDeserta . . .
CATHAY
Song of the Bowmen of
68 69
. . . . . . .
63 The City of Choan.
64 South Folk in Cold
95
Shu 75 The Beautiful Toilet. . TheBiverSong . . . The Biver Merchant's
112
To a Friend Writing on Cabaret Dancers . . . 117
Homage to Quintus Septi-
Wife: ALetter . . 81 The Jewel Stairs'
Grievance . . . . Poem by the Bridge at
83
mius Florentis
tianus
Fish and the Shadow
Chris -
121 , 123
Ten-Shin 84
. .
66
.
CONTENTS
65 Country 96
. . . . Villanelle : The Psychologi-
103
NearPerigord
cal Hour
77 Dans un Omnibus de
78 Londres 115
.
88
? LUSTRA OF EZRA POUND
Tenzone
WILL people accept them ? (i. e. these songs).
As a timorous wench from a centaur (or a centurion),
Already they flee, howling in terror.
Will they be touched with the verisimilitudes ?
Their virgin stupidity is untemptable,
I beg you, my friendly critics,
Do not set about to procure me an audience.
I mate with my free kind upon the crags ; the hidden recesses
Have heard the echo of my heels, in the cool light,
in the darkness.
9
? The Condolence
A mis soledades voy>
De mis soledades vengo, Porque por andar conmigo Mi bastan mis pensamientos.
Lope de Vega. O MY fellow sufferers, songs of my youth,
A lot of asses because praise you
are " !
you We are " Red Bloods "
virile,"
We, you, I !
Imagine it, my fellow sufferers
Our maleness lifts us out of the ruck,
Who'd have foreseen it ?
O my fellow sufferers, we went out under the
trees,
We were in especial bored with male stupidity.
We went forth gathering delicate thoughts,
Our " " to serve us. fantastikon delighted
We were not exasperated with women, for the female is ductile.
And now you hear what is said to us : We are compared to that sort of person Who wanders about announcing his sex As if he had just discovered it.
Let us leave this matter, my songs,
and return to that which concerns us.
10
? The Garret
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 T am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better Than this hour of clear coolness,
the hour of waking together.
11
? The Garden
En robe de parade. Sainain.
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 someone to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
12
? Ortus
How have I laboured ? How have I not laboured
To bring her soul to birth,
To give these elements a name and a centre !
She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.
She has no name, and no place.
How have I laboured to bring her soul into
separation ;
To give her a name and her being !
Surely you are bound and entwined,
You are mingled with the elements unborn ; I have loved a stream and a shadow.
I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech
you
learn to " I " say
When I question you :
For you are no part, but a whole ;
No portion, but a being.
13
? Salutation
GENERATION of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable, 1 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.
14
? Salutation the Second
You were praised, my books,
because I had just come from the country ;
I was twenty years behind the times so you found an audience ready.
I do not disown you,
do not you disown your progeny.
Here they stand without quaint devices,
Here they are with nothing archaic about them.
Watch the reporters spit,
Watch the anger of the professors, Watch how the pretty ladies revile them :
" Is
" the nonsense
this," they say,
that we expect of poets ?
"
"" Where is the vertigo of emotion ?
" No ! his first work was the best. "
" Poor Dear ! he has lost his illusions. "
15
"" Where is the Picturesque ?
? SALUTATION THE SECOND
Go, little naked and impudent songs, Go with a light foot !
(Or with two light feet, if it please you ! )
Go and dance shamelessly !
Go with an impertinent frolic !
Greet the grave and the stodgy,
Salute them with your thumbs at your noses.
Here are your bells and confetti.
Go ! rejuvenate things !
Rejuvenate even " The Spectator. " Go ! and make cat calls !
Dance and make people blush, Dance the dance of the phallus
and tell anecdotes of Cybele !
Speak of the indecorous conduct of the Gods !
(Tell it to Mr. Strachey. )
Ruffle the skirts of prudes,
speak of their knees and ankles.
But, above all, go to practical people go ! jangle their door-bells !
Let us leave this matter, my songs,
and return to that which concerns us.
10
? The Garret
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 T am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better Than this hour of clear coolness,
the hour of waking together.
11
? The Garden
En robe de parade. Sainain.
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 someone to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
12
? Ortus
How have I laboured ? How have I not laboured
To bring her soul to birth,
To give these elements a name and a centre !
She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.
She has no name, and no place.
How have I laboured to bring her soul into
separation ;
To give her a name and her being !
Surely you are bound and entwined,
You are mingled with the elements unborn ; I have loved a stream and a shadow.
I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech
you
learn to " I " say
When I question you :
For you are no part, but a whole ;
No portion, but a being.
13
? Salutation
GENERATION of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable, 1 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.
14
? Salutation the Second
You were praised, my books,
because I had just come from the country ;
I was twenty years behind the times so you found an audience ready.
I do not disown you,
do not you disown your progeny.
Here they stand without quaint devices,
Here they are with nothing archaic about them.
Watch the reporters spit,
Watch the anger of the professors, Watch how the pretty ladies revile them :
" Is
" the nonsense
this," they say,
that we expect of poets ?
"
"" Where is the vertigo of emotion ?
" No ! his first work was the best. "
" Poor Dear ! he has lost his illusions. "
15
"" Where is the Picturesque ?
? SALUTATION THE SECOND
Go, little naked and impudent songs, Go with a light foot !
(Or with two light feet, if it please you ! )
Go and dance shamelessly !
Go with an impertinent frolic !
Greet the grave and the stodgy,
Salute them with your thumbs at your noses.
Here are your bells and confetti.
Go ! rejuvenate things !
Rejuvenate even " The Spectator. " Go ! and make cat calls !
Dance and make people blush, Dance the dance of the phallus
and tell anecdotes of Cybele !
Speak of the indecorous conduct of the Gods !
(Tell it to Mr. Strachey. )
Ruffle the skirts of prudes,
speak of their knees and ankles.
But, above all, go to practical people go ! jangle their door-bells !
Say that you do no work
and that you will live forever.
16
? The Spring
CYDONIAN spring with her attendant train,
Maelids and water-girls,
Stepping beneath a boisterous wind from Thrace,
Throughout this sylvan place
Spreads the bright tips, And every vine-stock is
Clad in new brilliancies.
Falls like black lightning.
O bewildered heart,
Though every branch have back what last year
lost,
She, who moved here amid the cyclamen,
Moves only now a clinging tenuous ghost.
17
And wild desire
? Albatre
THIS lady in the white bath-robe which she calls
a peignoir
Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend,
And the delicate white feet of her little white
dog
Are not more delicate than she is,
Nor would Gautier himself have despised their contrasts in whiteness
As she sits in the great chair Between the two indolent candles.
Causa
I JOIN these words for four people, Some others may overhear them,
O world, I am sorry for you,
You do not know these four people.
18
? 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.
19 c2
? COMMISSION
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. Be against all sorts of mortmain.
20
? A Pact
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.
21
? Surgit Fama
THERE is a truce among the gods, Kore is seen in the North
Skirting the blue-gray sea In gilded and russet mantle.
The corn has again its mother and she, Leuconoe, That failed never women,
Fails not the earth now.
The tricksome Hermes is here ; He moves behind me
Eager to catch my words,
Eager to spread them with rumour ;
To set upon them his change
Crafty and subtle ;
To alter them to his purpose ;
But do thou speak true, even to the letter :
" Once more in Delos, once more is the altar
a-quiver.
Once more is the chant heard.
Once more are the never abandoned gardens Full of gossip and old tales. "
22
? Preference
IT is true that you say the gods are more use to
you than fairies,
But for all that I have seen you
on a high, white, noble horse, Like some strange queen in a story.
It is odd that you should be covered with long robes
and trailing tendrils and flowers ;
It is odd that you should be changing your face
and resembling some other woman to
plague me ;
It is odd that you should be hiding yourself
In the cloud of beautiful women who do not concern me.
And I, who follow every seed-leaf upon the wind ? You will say that I deserve this.
23
? Dance Figure
For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee
DARK eyed,
woman of my dreams,
Ivory sandaled,
There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet.
1 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 a young sapling under the
bark;
Thy face as a river with lights.
White as an almond are thy shoulders ; As new almonds stripped from the husk.
They guard thee not with eunuchs ; Not with bars of copper.
24
? DANCE FIGURE
Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest.
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.
25
? April
Nympharum membra disjecta.
THREE spirits came to me And drew me apart
To where the olive boughs
Lay stripped upon the ground : Pale carnage beneath bright mist.
Gentildonna
SHE passed and left no quiver in the veins, who now
Moving among the trees, and clinging
in the air she severed,
Fanning the grass she walked on then, endures : Grey olive leaves beneath a rain-cold sky.
26
? The Rest
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 can not wear yourselves out By persisting to successes,
You who can only speak,
Who can not 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 :
1 have weathered the storm,
I have beaten out my exile.
27
? Les Millwin
THE little Millwins attend the Russian Ballet. The mauve and greenish souls of the little
Millwins
Were seen lying along the upper seats Like so many unused boas.
The turbulent and undisciplined host of art students
The rigorous deputation from " Slade " Was before them.
With arms exalted, with fore-arms
Crossed in great futuristic X's, the art students
Exulted, they beheld the splendours of Cleopatra.
And the little Millwins beheld these things ;
With their large and anaemic eyes they looked
out upon this configuration.
Let us therefore mention the fact, For it seems to us worthy of record.
28
? Further Instructions
COME, my songs, let us express our baser passions, Let us express our envy of the man with a steady
job
and no worry about the future.
You are very idle, my songs.
I fear you will come to a bad end.
You stand about in the streets,
You loiter at the corners and bus-stops You do next to nothing at all.
You do not even express our inner nobilities, You will come to a very bad end.
And I?
I have gone half cracked,
I have talked to you so much that
I almost see you about me, Insolent little beasts, shameless, devoid of
clothing !
But you, newest song of the lot,
You are not old enough to have done much
mischief,
I will get you a green coat out of China
With dragons worked upon it,
I will get you the scarlet silk trousers
From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa
Maria Novella,
Lest they say we are lacking in taste, Or that there is no caste in this family.
29
? A Song of the Degrees
REST me with Chinese colours, For I think the glass is evil.
II
The wind moves above the wheat With a silver crashing,
A thin war of metal.
I have known the golden disc,
I have seen it melting above me.
I have known the stone-bright place, The hall of clear colours.
Ill
O glass subtly evil, confusion of colours !
O light bound and bent in, soul of the captive, WhyamIwarned? WhyamIsentaway? Why is your glitter full of curious mistrust ?
O glass subtle and cunning, O powdery gold ! O filaments of amber, two-faced iridescence !
30
? Ite
Go, my songs, seek your praise from the young and from the intolerant,
Move among the lovers of perfection alone. Seek ever to stand in the hard Sophoclean light And take your wounds from it gladly.
Dum Capitolium ScanJet
How many will come after me
singing as well as I sing, none better ;
Telling the heart of their truth
as I have taught them to tell it ;
Fruit of my seed,
my unnameable children.
Know then that I loved you from afore-time, Clear speakers, naked in the sun, untrammelled,
To KaXoV
EVEN in my dreams you have denied yourself to me
And sent me only your handmaids. 31
? The Study in Aesthetics
THE very small children in patched clothing, Being smitten with an unusual wisdom,
Stopped in their play as she passed them And cried up from their cobbles :
Guarda I Ahi, guarda I ch' e be'a ! *
But three years after this
I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do
not know
For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young Dantes and thirty-four Catulli ;
And there had been a great catch of sardines, And his elders
Were packing them in the great wooden boxes For the market in Brescia, and he
Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish And getting in both of their ways ;
And in vain they commanded him to sta fermo ! And when they would not let him arrange
The fish in the boxes
He stroked those which were already arranged,
Murmuring for his own satisfaction This identical phrase :
Ch' e be'a.
And at this I was mildly abashed.
*
32
Bella.
? The Bellaires
Aus meinen grossen Schmerzen Mach' ich die kleinen Licder.
THE good Bellaires
Do not understand the conduct of this world's
affairs.
In fact they understood them so badly That they have had to cross the Channel.
Nine lawyers, four counsels, five judges and three proctors of the King,
Together with the respective wives, husbands, sisters and heterogeneous connections of the
good Bellaires,
Met to discuss their affairs ;
But the good Bellaires have so little understood
their affairs
That now there is no one at all
Who can understand any affair of theirs. Yet Fourteen hunters still eat in the stables of The good Squire Bellaire ;
But these may not suffer attainder,
33 D
? THE BELLAIRES
For they may not belong to the good Squire Bellaire
But to his wife.
On the contrary, if they do not belong to his wife,
He will plead
A " freedom from attainder "
For twelve horses and also for twelve boarhounds From Charles the Fourth ;
And a further freedom for the remainder
Of horses, from Henry the Fourth.
But the judges,
Being free of medieval scholarship, Will pay no attention to this,
And there will be only the more confusion, Replevin, estoppel, espavin and what not.
Nine lawyers, four counsels, etc. ,
Met to discuss their affairs,
But the sole result was bills
From lawyers to whom no one was indebted, And even the lawyers
Were uncertain who was supposed to be indebted to them.
Wherefore the good Squire Bellaire Resides now at Agde and Biaucaire.
To Carcassonne, Pui, and Alais He fareth from day to day, 34
? THE BELLAIRES
Or takes the sea air Between Marseilles And Beziers.
And for all this I have considerable regret, For the good Bellaires
Are very charming people.
The New Cake of Soap
Lo, how it gleams and glistens in the sun Like the cheek of a Chesterton.
35
? Salvationists
COME, my songs, let us speak of perfection We shall get ourselves rather disliked.
II
Ah yes, my songs, let us resurrect The very excellent term Rusticus.
Let us apply it in all its opprobrium To those to whom it applies.
And you may decline to make them immortal. For we shall consider them and their state
In delicate Opulent silence.
Ill
Come, my songs,
Let us take arms against this sea of stupidities-
Begining with Mumpodorus ;
And against this sea of vulgarities
Beginning with Nimmim ;
And against this sea of imbeciles
All the Bulmenian literati.
36
? Epitaph
LETJCIS, who intended a Grand Passion, Ends with a willingness-to-oblige.
Andes
THE bashful Arides
Has married an ugly wife,
He was bored with his manner of life,
Indifferent and discouraged he thought he might as
Well do this as anything else.
Saying within his heart, " I am no use to myself, " Let her, if she wants me, take me. "
He went to his doom.
37
? The Bath Tub
As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
O my much praised but-not-altogether-satis- factory lady.
? Amities
Old friends the most. w. B. y.
To one, on returning certain years after. You wore the same quite correct clothing,
You took no pleasure at all in my triumphs, You had the same old air of condescension
Mingled with a curious fear
That I, myself, might have enjoyed them.
Te voila, man Bourrienne, you also shall be immortal.
II
To another.
And we say good-bye to you also,
For you seem never to have discovered
That your relationship is wholly parasitic ; Yet to our feasts you bring neither
Wit, nor good spirits, nor the pleasing attitudes
Of discipleship.
39
? AMITIES
III
But you, bos amic, we keep on, Fortoyouweowearealdebt:
In spite of your obvious flaws,
You once discovered a moderate chop-house.
IV
Iste fuit vir incultus,
Deo laus, quod est sepultus, Vermes habent eius vultum
Ego autem jovialis Gaudero contubernalis
Cum jocunda femina.
40
A-a-a-a A-men.
?
