The Dover Anthology of American Literature Volume II (68 page)

                
There's no
particular
haste.

            
You've got the whole night before you,

                
Heart's-all-beloved-my-own;

            
In an uninterrupted night one can

                
Get a good deal of kissing done.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Canzoni
. London: Elkin Mathews. 1911.

The
Seafarer
(1912)

(F
ROM THE EARLY
A
NGLO
-S
AXON TEXT
)

May I for my own self song's truth reckon,

Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days

Hardship endured oft.

Bitter breast-cares have I abided,

Known on my keel many a care's hold,

And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent

Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head

While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,

My feet were by frost benumbed.

Chill its chains are; chafing sighs

Hew my heart round and hunger begot

Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not

That he on dry land loveliest liveth,

List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,

Weathered the winter, wretched outcast

Deprived of my kinsmen;

Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,

There I heard naught save the harsh sea

And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,

Did for my games the gannet's clamour,

Sea-fowls' loudness was for me laughter,

The mews' singing all my mead-drink.

Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern

In
icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed

With spray on his pinion.

                                
Not any protector

May make merry man faring needy.

This he little believes, who aye in winsome life

Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business,

Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft

Must bide above brine.

Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,

Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then

Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now

The heart's thought that I on high streams

The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.

Moaneth alway my mind's lust

That I fare forth, that I afar hence

Seek out a foreign fastness.

For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst,

Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;

Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful

But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare

Whatever his lord will.

He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having

Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight

Nor any whit else save the wave's slash,

Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.

Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,

Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,

All this admonisheth man eager of mood,

The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks

On flood-ways to be far departing.

Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,

He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,

The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not—

He the prosperous man—what some perform

Where wandering them widest draweth.

So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,

My mood 'mid the mere-flood,

Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.

On earth's shelter cometh oft to me,

Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,

Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,

O'er
tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow

My lord deems to me this dead life

On loan and on land, I believe not

That any earth-weal eternal standeth

Save there be somewhat calamitous

That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.

Disease or oldness or sword-hate

Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.

And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after—

Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,

That he will work ere he pass onward,

Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice,

Daring ado, . . .

So that all men shall honour him after

And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,

Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast,

Delight mid the doughty.

                                
Days little durable,

And all arrogance of earthen riches,

There come now no kings nor Cæsars

Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.

Howe'er in mirth most magnified,

Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,

Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!

Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.

Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.

Earthly glory ageth and seareth.

No man at all going the earth's gait,

But age fares against him, his face paleth,

Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,

Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven,

Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,

Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,

Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,

And though he strew the grave with gold,

His born brothers, their buried bodies

Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Ripostes of Ezra Pound
. London: S. Swift, 1912.

The
Garden
(1916)

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 anæmia.

    
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.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Lustra of Ezra Pound with Earlier Poems
. London: Elkin Mathews, 1916.

Meditatio
(1916)

        
When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs

        
I am compelled to conclude

        
That man is the superior animal.

        
When I consider the curious habits of man

        
I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Lustra of Ezra Pound with Earlier Poems
. London: Elkin Mathews, 1916.

In
a Station of the Metro
(1916)

        
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

        
Petals on a wet, black bough.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Lustra of Ezra Pound with Earlier Poems
. London: Elkin Mathews. 1916.

Alba
(1916)

As cool as the pale wet leaves

of lily-of-the-valley

She lay beside me in the dawn.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Lustra of Ezra Pound with Earlier Poems
. London: Elkin Mathews, 1916.

The
Lake Isle
(1917)

        
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,

    
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop,

    
With the little bright boxes

                        
piled up neatly upon the shelves

    
And the loose fragrant cavendish

                        
and the shag,

    
And the bright Virginia

                        
loose under the bright glass cases,

    
And a pair of scales

                        
not too greasy,

    
And the
volailles
dropping in for a word or two in passing,

    
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.

        
O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,

    
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,

                        
or install me in any profession

    
Save this damn'd profession of writing,

                        
where one needs one's brains all the time.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Lustra of Ezra Pound with Earlier Poems
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917.

Song
of the Bowmen of Shu
(1917)

Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots

And saying: When shall we get back to our country?

Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen,

We have no comfort because of these Mongols.

We grub the soft fern-shoots,

When anyone says “Return,” the others are full of sorrow.

Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty.

Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return.

We grub the old fern-stalks.

We say: Will we be let to go back in October?

There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort.

Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country.

What flower has come into blossom?

Whose chariot? The General's.

Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong.

We have no rest, three battles a month.

By heaven, his horses are tired.

The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them.

The horses are well trained, the generals have ivory arrows and quivers ornamented with fish-skin.

The enemy is swift, we must be careful.

When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring,

We come back in the snow,

We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty,

Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief?

By Bunno.

Reputedly 1100 B.C.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Lustra of Ezra Pound with Earlier Poems
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917.

The
River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter
(1917)

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 Chokan:

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-to-Yen, 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 Cho-fu-Sa.

By Rihaku.

S
OURCE:
Ezra Pound.
Lustra of Ezra Pound with Earlier Poems
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917.

The
Jewel Stairs' Grievance
(1917)

                
The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,

                
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,

                
And I let down the crystal curtain

                
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.

By Rihaku.

[Pound's] Note: Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore he has no excuse on account of weather. Also she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.