Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.

1920 (Mauberley) I

(Life and Contacts) “Vocat aestus in umbram” Nemesianus Ec. IV. E. P. ODE POUR L’ÉLECTION DE SON SÉPULCHRE For three years, out of key with his time, He strove to resuscitate the dead art Of poetry; to maintain “the sublime” In the old sense. Wrong from the start— No, hardly, but, seeing he had been born In a half savage country, out of date; Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn; Capaneus; trout for factitious bait: “Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie Caught in the unstopped ear; Giving the rocks small lee-way The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year. His true Penelope was Flaubert, He fished by obstinate isles; Observed the elegance of Circe’s hair Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials. Unaffected by “the march of events,” He passed from men’s memory in l’an trentiesme De son eage; the case presents No adjunct to the Muses’ diadem. II The age demanded an image Of its accelerated grimace, Something for the modern stage, Not, at any rate, an Attic grace; Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries Of the inward gaze; Better mendacities Than the classics in paraphrase! The “age demanded” chiefly a mould in plaster, Made with no loss of time, A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster Or the “sculpture” of rhyme. III The tea-rose, tea-gown, etc. Supplants the mousseline of Cos, The pianola “replaces” Sappho’s barbitos. Christ follows Dionysus, Phallic and ambrosial Made way for macerations; Caliban casts out Ariel. All things are a flowing, Sage Heracleitus says; But a tawdry cheapness Shall reign throughout our days. Even the Christian beauty Defects—after Samothrace; We see to kalon Decreed in the market place. Faun’s flesh is not to us, Nor the saint’s vision. We have the press for wafer; Franchise for circumcision. All men, in law, are equals. Free of Peisistratus, We choose a knave or an eunuch To rule over us. A bright Apollo, tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon, What god, man, or hero Shall I place a tin wreath upon? 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. YEUX GLAUQUES Gladstone was still respected, When John Ruskin produced “Kings Treasuries”; Swinburne And Rossetti still abused. Foetid Buchanan lifted up his voice When that faun’s head of hers Became a pastime for Painters and adulterers. The Burne-Jones cartons Have preserved her eyes; Still, at the Tate, they teach Cophetua to rhapsodize; Thin like brook-water, With a vacant gaze. The English Rubaiyat was still-born In those days. The thin, clear gaze, the same Still darts out faun-like from the half-ruin’d face, Questing and passive .... “Ah, poor Jenny’s case” ... Bewildered that a world Shows no surprise At her last maquero’s Adulteries. “SIENA MI FE’, DISFECEMI MAREMMA’” Among the pickled foetuses and bottled bones, Engaged in perfecting the catalogue, I found the last scion of the Senatorial families of Strasbourg, Monsieur Verog. For two hours he talked of Gallifet; Of Dowson; of the Rhymers’ Club; Told me how Johnson (Lionel) died By falling from a high stool in a pub ... But showed no trace of alcohol At the autopsy, privately performed— Tissue preserved—the pure mind Arose toward Newman as the whiskey warmed. Dowson found harlots cheaper than hotels; Headlam for uplift; Image impartially imbued With raptures for Bacchus, Terpsichore and the Church. So spoke the author of “The Dorian Mood,” M. Verog, out of step with the decade, Detached from his contemporaries, Neglected by the young, Because of these reveries. BRENNEBAUM The sky-like limpid eyes, The circular infant’s face, The stiffness from spats to collar Never relaxing into grace; The heavy memories of Horeb, Sinai and the forty years, Showed only when the daylight fell Level across the face Of Brennbaum “The Impeccable.” MR. NIXON In the cream gilded cabin of his steam yacht Mr. Nixon advised me kindly, to advance with fewer Dangers of delay. “Consider ”Carefully the reviewer. “I was as poor as you are; “When I began I got, of course, “Advance on royalties, fifty at first,” said Mr. Nixon, “Follow me, and take a column, “Even if you have to work free. “Butter reviewers. From fifty to three hundred “I rose in eighteen months; “The hardest nut I had to crack “Was Dr. Dundas. “I never mentioned a man but with the view “Of selling my own works. “The tip’s a good one, as for literature “It gives no man a sinecure.” And no one knows, at sight a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There’s nothing in it.” *        *        *        * Likewise a friend of Bloughram’s once advised me: Don’t kick against the pricks, Accept opinion. The “Nineties” tried your game And died, there’s nothing in it. X Beneath the sagging roof The stylist has taken shelter, Unpaid, uncelebrated, At last from the world’s welter Nature receives him, With a placid and uneducated mistress He exercises his talents And the soil meets his distress. The haven from sophistications and contentions Leaks through its thatch; He offers succulent cooking; The door has a creaking latch. XI “Conservatrix of Milésien” Habits of mind and feeling, Possibly. But in Ealing With the most bank-clerkly of Englishmen? No, “Milésian” is an exaggeration. No instinct has survived in her Older than those her grandmother Told her would fit her station. XII “Daphne with her thighs in bark Stretches toward me her leafy hands,”— Subjectively. In the stuffed-satin drawing-room I await The Lady Valentine’s commands, Knowing my coat has never been Of precisely the fashion To stimulate, in her, A durable passion; Doubtful, somewhat, of the value Of well-gowned approbation Of literary effort, But never of The Lady Valentine’s vocation: Poetry, her border of ideas, The edge, uncertain, but a means of blending With other strata Where the lower and higher have ending; A hook to catch the Lady Jane’s attention, A modulation toward the theatre, Also, in the case of revolution, A possible friend and comforter. *        *        *        * Conduct, on the other hand, the soul “Which the highest cultures have nourished” To Fleet St. where Dr. Johnson flourished; Beside this thoroughfare The sale of half-hose has Long since superseded the cultivation Of Pierian roses. Envoi (1919) Go, dumb-born book, Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes: Hadst thou but song As thou hast subjects known, Then were there cause in thee that should condone Even my faults that heavy upon me lie And build her glories their longevity. Tell her that sheds Such treasure in the air, Recking naught else but that her graces give Life to the moment, I would bid them live As roses might, in magic amber laid, Red overwrought with orange and all made One substance and one colour Braving time. Tell her that goes With song upon her lips But sings not out the song, nor knows The maker of it, some other mouth, May be as fair as hers, Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers, When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid, Siftings on siftings in oblivion, Till change hath broken down All things save Beauty alone.

The scientists are in terror and the European mind stops Wyndham Lewis chose blindness rather than have his mind stop. Night under wind mid garofani, the petals are almost still Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona, When one’s friends hate each other how can there be peace in the world? Their asperities diverted me in my green time. A blown husk that is finished but the light sings eternal a pale flare over marshes where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change Time, space, neither life nor death is the answer. And of man seeking good, doing evil. In meiner Heimat where the dead walked and the living were made of cardboard.

Go, dumb-born book, Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes: Hadst thou but song As thou hast subjects known, Then were there cause in thee that should condone Even my faults that heavy upon me lie And build her glories their longevity. Tell her that sheds Such treasure in the air, Recking naught else but that her graces give Life to the moment, I would bid them live As roses might, in magic amber laid, Red overwrought with orange and all made One substance and one colour Braving time. Tell her that goes With song upon her lips But sings not out the song, nor knows The maker of it, some other mouth, May be as fair as hers, Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers, When our two dusts with Waller’s shall be laid, Siftings on siftings in oblivion, Till change hath broken down All things save Beauty alone.

A Lady asks me I speak in season She seeks reason for an affect, wild often That is so proud he hath Love for a name Who denys it can hear the truth now Wherefore I speak to the present knowers Having no hope that low-hearted Can bring sight to such reason Be there not natural demonstration I have no will to try proof-bringing Or say where it hath birth What is its virtu and power Its being and every moving Or delight whereby ‘tis called “to love” Or if man can show it to sight. Where memory liveth, it takes its state Formed like a diafan from light on shade Which shadow cometh of Mars and remaineth Created, having a name sensate, Custom of the soul, will from the heart; Cometh from a seen form which being understood Taketh locus and remaining in the intellect possible Wherein hath he neither weight nor still-standing, Descendeth not by quality but shineth out Himself his own effect unendingly Not in delight but in the being aware Nor can he leave his true likeness otherwhere. He is not vertu but cometh of that perfection Which is so postulate not by the reason But ‘tis felt, I say. Beyond salvation, holdeth his judging force Deeming intention to be reason’s peer and mate, Poor in discernment, being thus weakness’ friend Often his power cometh on death in the end, Be it withstayed and so swinging counterweight. Not that it were natural opposite, but only Wry’d a bit from the perfect, Let no man say love cometh from chance Or hath not established lordship Holding his power even though Memory hath him no more. Cometh he to be when the will From overplus Twisteth out of natural measure, Never adorned with rest Moveth he changing colour Either to laugh or weep Contorting the face with fear resteth but a little Yet shall ye see of him That he is most often With folk who deserve him And his strange quality sets sighs to move Willing man look into that forméd trace in his mind And with such uneasiness as rouseth the flame. Unskilled can not form his image, He himself moveth not, drawing all to his stillness, Neither turneth about to seek his delight Nor yet to see out proving Be it so great or so small. He draweth likeness and hue from like nature So making pleasure more certain in seeming Nor can stand hid in such nearness, Beautys be darts tho’ not savage Skilled from such fear a man follows Deserving spirit, that pierceth. Nor is he known from his face But taken in the white light that is allness Toucheth his aim Who heareth, seeth not form But is led by its emanation Being divided, set out from colour, Disjunct in mid darkness Grazeth the light, one moving by other, Being divided, divided from all falsity Worthy of trust From him alone mercy proceedeth. Go, song, surely thou mayest Whither it please thee For so art thou ornate that thy reasons Shall be praised from thy understanders, With others hast thou no will to make company. “Called thrones, balascio or topaze” Eriugina was not understood in his time “which explains, perhaps, the delay in condemning him” And they went looking for Manicheans And found, so far as I can make out, no Manicheans So they dug for, and damned Scotus Eriugina “Authority comes from right reason, never the other way on” Hence the delay in condemning him Aquinas head down in a vacuum, Aristotle which way in a vacuum? Sacrum, sacrum, inluminatio coitu. Lo Sordels si fo di Mantovana of a castle named Goito. “Five castles! “Five castles!” (king giv’ him five castles) “And what the hell do I know about dye-works?!” His Holiness has written a letter: “CHARLES the Mangy of Anjou…. ..way you treat your men is a scandal….” Dilectis miles familiaris…castra Montis Odorisii Montis Sancti Silvestri pallete et pile… In partibus Thetis….vineland land tilled the land incult pratis nemoribus pascuis with legal jurisdiction his heirs of both sexes, …sold the damn lot six weeks later, Sordellus de Godio. Quan ben m’albir e mon ric pensamen.

And before hell mouth; dry plain and two mountains; On the one mountain, a running form, and another In the turn of the hill; in hard steel The road like a slow screw’s thread, The angle almost imperceptible, so that the circuit seemed hardly to rise; And the running form, naked, Blake, Shouting, whirling his arms, the swift limbs, Howling against the evil, his eyes rolling, Whirling like flaming cart-wheels, and his head held backward to gaze on the evil As he ran from it, to be hid by the steel mountain, And when he showed again from the north side; his eyes blazing toward hell mouth, His neck forward, and like him Peire Cardinal. And in the west mountain, Il Fiorentino, Seeing hell in his mirror, and lo Sordels Looking on it in his shield; And Augustine, gazing toward the invisible. And past them, the criminal lying in the blue lakes of acid, The road between the two hills, upward slowly, The flames patterned in lacquer, crimen est actio, The limbo of chopped ice and saw-dust, And I bathed myself with acid to free myself of the hell ticks, Scales, fallen louse eggs. Palux Laerna, the lake of bodies, aqua morta, of limbs fluid, and mingled, like fish heaped in a bin, and here an arm upward, clutching a fragment of marble, And the embryos, in flux, new inflow, submerging, Here an arm upward, trout, submerged by the eels; and from the bank, the stiff herbage the dry nobbled path, saw many known, and unknown, for an instant; submerging, The face gone, generation. Then light, air, under saplings, the blue banded lake under æther, an oasis, the stones, the calm field, the grass quiet, and passing the tree of the bough The grey stone posts, and the stair of gray stone, the passage clean-squared in granite: descending, and I through this, and into the earth, patet terra, entered the quiet air the new sky, the light as after a sun-set, and by their fountains, the heroes, Sigismundo, and Malatesta Novello, and founders, gazing at the mounts of their cities. The plain, distance, and in fount-pools the nymphs of that water rising, spreading their garlands, weaving their water reeds with the boughs, In the quiet, and now one man rose from his fountain and went off into the plain. Prone in that grass, in sleep; et j’entendis des voix:… wall .  .  .  Strasbourg Galliffet led that triple charge.  .  .  Prussians and he said                                                            [Plarr’s narration] it was for the honour of the army. And they called him a swashbuckler. I didn’t know what it was But I thought:    This is pretty bloody damn fine. And my old nurse, he was a man nurse, and He killed a Prussian and he lay in the street there in front of our house for three days And he stank.  .  .  .  .  .  . Brother Percy, And our Brother Percy… old Admiral He was a middy in those days, And they came into Ragusa .  .  .  .  .  .  place those men went for the Silk War.  .  .  .  . And they saw a procession coming down through A cut in the hills, carrying something The six chaps in front carrying a long thing on their shoulders, And they thought it was a funeral, but the thing was wrapped up in scarlet, And he put off in the cutter, he was a middy in those days, To see what the natives were doing, And they got up to the six fellows in livery, And they looked at it, and I can still hear the old admiral, “Was it? it was Lord Byron Dead drunk, with the face of an A  y  n.  .  .  .  .  .  .  . He pulled it out long, like that: the face of an a  y  n  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  gel.” And because that son of a bitch, Franz Josef of Austria.  .  .  .  .  . And because that son of a bitch Napoléon Barbiche… They put Aldington on Hill 70, in a trench dug through corpses With a lot of kids of sixteen, Howling and crying for their mamas, And he sent a chit back to his major: I can hold out for ten minutes With my sergeant and a machine-gun. And they rebuked him for levity. And Henri Gaudier went to it, and they killed him, And killed a good deal of sculpture, And ole T.E.H. he went to it, With a lot of books from the library, London Library, and a shell buried ‘em in a dug-out, And the Library expressed its annoyance. And a bullet hit him on the elbow …gone through the fellow in front of him, And he read Kant in the Hospital, in Wimbledon, in the original, And the hospital staff didn’t like it. And Wyndham Lewis went to it, With a heavy bit of artillery, and the airmen came by with a mitrailleuse, And cleaned out most of his company, and a shell lit on his tin hut, While he was out in the privy, and he was all there was left of that outfit. Windeler went to it, and he was out in the Ægæan, And down in the hold of his ship pumping  gas into a sausage, And the boatswain looked over the rail, down into amidships, and he said: Gees! look a’ the Kept’n, The Kept’n’s a-gettin’ ‘er up. And Ole Captain Baker went to it, with his legs full of rheumatics, So much so he couldn’t run, so he was six months in hospital, Observing the mentality of the patients. And Fletcher was 19 when he went to it, And his major went mad in the control pit, about  midnight, and started throwing the ‘phone about And he had to keep him quiet till abut six in the morning, And direct that bunch of artillery. And Ernie Hemingway went to it, too much in a hurry, And they buried him for four days. Et ma foi, vous savez, tous les nerveux.  Non, Y a une limite; les bêtes, les bêtes ne sont Pas faites pour ça, c’est peu de chose un cheval. Les hommes de 34 ans à quatre pattes qui criaient “maman.” Mais les costauds, La fin, là à Verdun, n’y avait que ces gros bonshommes Et y voyaient extrêmement clair. Qu’est-ce que ça vaut, les généraux, le lieutenant, on les pèse à un centigramme, n’y a rien que du bois, Notr’ capitaine, tout, tout ce qu’il y a de plus renfermé de vieux polytechnicien, mais solide, La tête solide. Là, vous savez, Tout, tout fonctionne, et les voleurs, tous les vices, Mais les rapaces, y avait trois dans notre compagnie, tous tués. Y sortaient fouiller un cadavre, pour rien, y n’serainet sortis pour rien que ça. Et les boches, tout ce que vous voulez, militarisme, et cætera, et cætera. Tout ça, mais, MAIS, l’français, i s’bat quand y a mangé. Mais ces pauvres types A  la  fin y s’attaquaient pour manger, Sans orders, les bêtes sauvages, on y fait Prisonniers; ceux qui parlaient français disaient: “Poo quah? Ma foi on attaquait pour manger.” C’est le corr-ggras, le corps gras, leurs trains marchaient trois kilomètres à l’heure, Et ça criait, ça grincait, on l’entendait à cinq kilomètres. (Ça qui finit la guerre.) Liste officielle des morts 5,000,000. I vous dit, bè, voui, tout sentait le pétrole. Mais, Non! je l’ai engueulé. Je lui ai dit: T’es un con! T’a raté la guerre. O voui! tous les homes de goût, y conviens, Tout ça en arrière. Mais un mec comme toi! C’t homme, un type comme ça! Ce qu’il aurait pu encaisser! Il était dans une fabrique. What, burying squad, terrassiers, avec leur tête en arrière, qui regardaient comme ça, On risquait la vie pour un coup de pelle, Faut que ça soit bein carré, exact… Dey vus a bolcheviki dere, und dey dease him: Looka vat youah Trotzsk is done, e iss madeh deh zhamefull beace!! “He iss madeh de zhamefull beace, iss he? “He is madeh de zhamevull beace? “A Brest-Litovsk, yess? Aint yuh herd? “He vinneh de vore. “De droobs iss released vrom de eastern vront, yess? “Un venn dey getts to deh vestern vront, iss it “How many getts dere? “And dose doat getts dere iss so full off revolutions “Venn deh vrench is come dhru, yess, “Dey say, “Vot?” Un de posch say: “Aint yeh heard? Say, ve got a rheffolution.” That’s the trick with a crowd, Get ‘em into the street and get ‘em moving. And all the time, there were people going Down there, over the river. There was a man there talking, To a thousand, just a short speech, and Then move ‘em on.   And he said: Yes, these people, they are all right, they Can do everything, everything except act; And go an’ hear ‘em but when they are through Come to the bolsheviki… And when it broke, there was the crowd there, And the cossacks, just as always before, But one thing, the cossacks said: “Pojalouista.” And that got round in the crowd, And then a lieutenant of infantry Ordered ‘em to fire into the crowd, in the square at the end of the Nevsky, In front of the Moscow station, And they wouldn’t, And he pulled his sword on a student for laughing, And killed him, And a cossack rode out of his squad On the other side of the square And cut down the lieutenant of infantry And there was the revolution… as soon as they named it. And you can’t make ‘em, Nobody knew it was coming. They were all ready, the old gang, Guns on the top of the post-office and the palace, But none of the leaders knew it was coming. And there were some killed at the barracks, But that was between the troops. So we used to hear it at the opera That they wouldn’t be under Haig; and that the advance was beginning; That it was going to begin in a week.

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 tone 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. N.B. Usury: A charge for the use of purchasing power, levied without regard to production; often without regard to the possibilities of production. (Hence the failure of the Medici bank.)

Zeus lies in Ceres’ bosom Taishan is attended of loves under Cythera, before sunrise And he said: “Hay aquí mucho catolicismo—(sounded catoli th ismo y muy poco reliHion.” and he said: “Yo creo que los reyes desparecen” (Kings will, I think, disappear) This was Padre José Elizondo in 1906 and in 1917 or about 1917 and Dolores said: “Come pan, niño,”   eat bread, me lad Sargent had painted her before he descended (i.e. if he descended but in those days he did thumb sketches, impressions of the Velázquez in the Museo del Prado and books cost a peseta, brass candlesticks in proportion, hot wind came from the marshes and death-chill from the mountains. And later Bowers wrote: “but such hatred, I have never conceived such” and the London reds wouldn’t show up his friends (i.e. friends of Franco working in London) and in Alcázar forty years gone, they said: go back to the station to eat you can sleep here for a peseta” goat bells tinkled all night and the hostess grinned: Eso es luto,haw! mi marido es muerto (it is mourning, my husband is dead) when she gave me a paper to write on with a black border half an inch or more deep, say 5/8ths, of the locanda “We call all foreigners frenchies” and the egg broke in Cabranez’ pocket, thus making history. Basil says they beat drums for three days till all the drumheads were busted (simple village fiesta) and as for his life in the Canaries… Possum observed that the local portagoose folk dance was danced by the same dancers in divers localities in political welcome… the technique of demonstration Cole studied that (not G.D.H., Horace) “You will find” said old André Spire, that every man on that board (Crédit Agricole) has a brother-in-law “You the one, I the few” said John Adams speaking of fears in the abstract to his volatile friend Mr Jefferson. (To break the pentameter, that was the first heave) or as Jo Bard says:   they never speak to each other, if it is baker and concierge visibly it is La Rouchefoucauld and de Maintenon audibly. “Te cavero le budella” “La corata a te” In less than a geological epoch said Henry Mencken “Some cook, some do not cook some things cannot be altered” ’Iugx.  .  .  .  . ’emònpotídwmaaònandra What counts is the cultural level, thank Benin for this table ex packing box “doan yu tell no one I made it” from a mask fine as any in Frankfurt “It’ll get you offn th’ groun” Light as the branch of Kuanon And at first disappointed with shoddy the bare ram-shackle quais, but then saw the high buggy wheels and was reconciled, George Santayana arriving in the port of Boston and kept to the end of his life that faint thethear of the Spaniard as grace quasi imperceptible as did Muss the v for u of Romagna and said the grief was a full act repeated for each new condoleress working up to a climax. and George Horace said he wd/ “get Beveridge” (Senator) Beveridge wouldn’t talk and he wouldn’t write for the papers but George got him by campin’ in his hotel and assailin’ him at lunch breakfast an’ dinner three articles and my ole man went on hoein’ corn while George was a-tellin’ him, come across a vacant lot where you’d occasionally see a wild rabbit or mebbe only a loose one AOI! a leaf in the current at my grates no Althea ______ libretto ______ Yet Ere the season died a-cold Borne upon a zephyr’s shoulder I rose through the aureate sky Lawes and Jenkyns guard thy rest Dolmetsch ever be thy guest, Has he tempered the viol’s wood To enforce   both the grave   and the acute? Has he curved us the bowl of the lute? Lawes and Jenkyns guard thy rest Dolmetsch ever be thy guest Hast ’ou fashioned so airy a mood To draw up leaf from the root? Hast ’ou found   a cloud   so light As seemed neither mist nor shade? Then resolve me, tell me aright If Waller sang or Dowland played Your eyen two wol sleye me sodenly I may the beauté of hem nat susteyne And for 180 years almost nothing. Ed ascoltando al leggier mormorio there came new subtlety of eyes into my tent, whether of the spirit or hypostasis, but what the blindfold hides or at carneval nor any pair showed anger Saw but the eyes and stance between the eyes, colour, diastasis, careless or unaware it had not the whole tent’s room nor was place for the full EidwV interpass, penetrate casting but shade beyond the other lights sky’s clear night’s sea green of the mountain pool shone from the unmasked eyes in half-mask’s space. 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 lovest 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 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  .  .  .

Palace in smoky light, Troy but a heap of smouldering boundary stones, ANAXIFORMINGES!  Aurunculeia! Hear me.   Cadmus of Golden Prows! The silver mirrors catch the bright stones and flare, Dawn, to our waking, drifts in the green cool light; Dew-haze blurs, in the grass, pale ankles moving. Beat, beat, whirr, thud, in the soft turf under the apple trees, Choros nympharum, goat-foot, with the pale foot alternate; Crescent of blue-shot waters, green-gold in the shallows, A black cock crows in the sea-foam; And by the curved, carved foot of the couch, claw-foot and lion head, an old man seated Speaking in the low drone…: Ityn! Et ter flebiliter, Ityn, Ityn! And she went toward the window and cast her down, “All the while, the while, swallows crying: Ityn! “It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish.” “It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish?” “No other taste shall change this.” And she went toward the window, the slim white stone bar Making a double arch; Firm even fingers held to the firm pale stone; Swung for a moment, and the wind out of Rhodez Caught in the full of her sleeve. . . .  the swallows crying: ‘Tis.  ‘Tis.  ‘Ytis! Actæon… and a valley, The valley is thick with leaves, with leaves, the trees, The sunlight glitters, glitters a-top, Like a fish-scale roof, Like the church roof in Poictiers If it were gold. Beneath it, beneath it Not a ray, not a slivver, not a spare disc of sunlight Flaking the black, soft water; Bathing the body of nymphs, of nymphs, and Diana, Nymphs, white-gathered about her, and the air, air, Shaking, air alight with the goddess fanning their hair in the dark, Lifting, lifting and waffing: Ivory dipping in silver, Shadow’d, o’ershadow’d Ivory dipping in silver, Not a splotch, not a lost shatter of sunlight. Then Actæon: Vidal, Vidal.   It is old Vidal speaking, stumbling along in the wood, Not a patch, not a lost shimmer of sunlight, the pale hair of the goddess. The dogs leap on Actæon, “Hither, hither, Actæon,” Spotted stag of the wood; Gold, gold, a sheaf of hair, Thick like a wheat swath, Blaze, blaze in the sun, The dogs leap on Actæon. Stumbling, stumbling along in the wood, Muttering, muttering Ovid: “Pergusa… pool… pool… Gargaphia, “Pool… pool of Salmacis.” The empty armour shakes as the cygnet moves. Thus the light rains, thus pours,e lo soleills plovil The liquid and rushing crystal beneath the knees of the gods. Ply over ply, thin glitter of water; Brook film bearing white petals. The pine at Takasago grows with the pine of Isé! The water whirls up the bright pale sand in the spring’s mouth “Behold the Tree of the Visages!” Forked branch-tips, flaming as if with lotus. Ply over ply The shallow eddying fluid, beneath the knees of the gods. Torches melt in the glare set flame of the corner cook-stall, Blue agate casing the sky (as at Gourdon that time) the sputter of resin, Saffron sandal so petals the narrow foot: Hymenæus Io! Hymen, Io Hymenæe! Aurunculeia! One scarlet flower is cast on the blanch-white stone. And S o-Gyoku, saying: “This wind, sire, is the king’s wind, This wind is wind of the palace, Shaking imperial water-jets.” And Hsiang, opening his collar: “This wind roars in the earth’s bag, it lays the water with rushes.” No wind is the king’s wind. Let every cow keep her calf. “This wind is held in gauze curtains…” No wind is the king’s… The camel drivers sit in the turn of the stairs, Look down on Ecbatan of plotted streets, “Danaë! Danaë! What wind is the king’s?” Smoke hangs on the stream, The peach-trees shed bright leaves in the water, Sound drifts in the evening haze, The bark scrapes at the ford, Gilt rafters above black water, Three steps in an open field, Gray stone-posts leading… Père Henri Jacques would speak with the Sennin, on Rokku, Mount Rokku between the rock and the cedars, Polhonac, As Gyges on Thracian platter set the feast, Cabestan, Tereus, It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish, Vidal, or Ecbatan, upon the gilded tower in Ecbatan Lay the god’s bride, lay ever, waiting the golden rain. By Garonne.             “Saave!” The Garonne is thick like paint, Procession,—“Et sa’ave, sa’ave, sa’ave Regina!”— Moves like a worm, in the crowd. Adige, thin film of images, Across the Adige, by Stefano, Madonna in hortulo, As Cavalcanti had seen her. The Centaur’s heel plants in the earth loam. And we sit here… there in the arena…