Ezra Pound

“ Slow-Smiling is companion unto him,
And Mellow-Laughter serves, his trencherman.
And I a thousand beauties there beheld.
And he and they made merry endlessly.
And love was rayed between them as a mist,
And yet so fine and delicate a haze
It did impede the eyes no whit,
Unless it were to make the halo round each one
Appear more myriad-jewelled marvellous,
Than any pearled and ruby diadem the courts o' earth
ha' known. ”

“ Save this: "Vers and canzone to the Countess of Beziers
In return for the first kiss she gave me."
May her eyes and her cheek be fair
To all men except the King of Aragon,
And may I come speedily to Beziers
Whither my desire and my dream have preceded me. ”

“ Then let us be such dreams the world shall tremble at
And know we be its rulers though but dreams!
Then let us be such shadows as the world shall tremble at
And know we be its masters though but shadow!
Great God, if men are grown but pale sick phantoms
That must live only in these mists and tempered lights
And tremble for dim hours that knock o'er loud
Or tread too violent in passing them;
Great God, if these thy sons are grown such thin ephemera,
I bid thee grapple chaos and beget
Some new titanic spawn to pile the hills and stir
This earth again. ”

“ Masks These tales of old disguisings, are they not
Strange myths of souls that found themselves among
Unwonted folk that spake a 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
E'er ballad makers lisped of Camelot?
Old singers half-forgetful of their tunes,
Old painters colour-blind come back once more,
Old poets skilless in the wind-heart runes,
Old wizards lacking in their wonder-lore ”

“ Have the earth in mock'ry, and are kind to all,
My fellows, aye I know the glory
Of th' unbounded ones, but ye, that hide
As I hide most the while
And burst forth to the windows only whiles or whiles
For love, or hope, or beauty or for power,
Then smoulder, with the lids half closed
And are untouched by echoes of the world. ”

“ Till my soul sent a woman as the sun:
Yea as the sun calleth to the seed,
As the spring upon the bough
So is she that cometh the song-drawer
She that holdeth the wonder words within her eyes
The words little elf words
that call ever unto me
"Song, a song."
ENVOI
In vain have I striven with my soul
to teach my soul to bow.
What soul boweth
while in his heart art thou?
Camaraderie "E tuttoque to fosse a la compagnia di molti, quanto
alla vista." ”

“ As drops that dream and gleam and falling catch the sun,
Evan'scent mirrors every opal one
Of such his splendour as their compass is,
So, bold My Songs, seek ye such death as this.
La Fraisne [1] SCENE: The Ash Wood of Malvern.
For I was a gaunt, grave councillor
Being in all things wise, and very old,
But I have put aside this folly and the cold
That old age weareth for a cloak.
I was quite strong—at least they said so—
The young men at the sword-play ”

“ Occidit Autumnal breaks the flame upon the sun-set herds.
The sheep on Gilead as tawn hair gleam
Neath Mithra's dower and his slow departing,
While in the sky a thousand fleece of gold
Bear, each his tribute, to the waning god. ”

“ Our consciousness and leaves us feeling
That somehow all is well, that sober, reeling
From the last carouse, or in what measure
Of so called right or so damned wrong our leisure
Runs out uncounted sand beneath the sun,
That, spite your carping, still the thing is done
With some deep sanction, that, we know not how,
Sans thought gives us this feeling ”

“ Till now they send him dreams and no more deed;
So doth he flame again with might for action,
Forgetful of the council of the elders,
Forgetful that who rules doth no more battle,
Forgetful that such might no more cleaves to him
So doth he flame again toward valiant doing. ”

“ A treatise wherein is shown that there are in existence on earth rational creatures besides man, endowed like him with a body and soul, that are born and die like him, redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ, and capable of receiving salvation or damnation. ”

“ Broad as all ocean and leanin' man-kin'ards.
Heart that was big as the bowels of Vesuvius,
Words that were wing'd as her sparks in eruption,
Eagled and thundered as Jupiter Pluvius,
Sound in your wind past all signs o' corruption.
Here's to you, Old Hippety-hop o' the accents,
True to the Truth's sake and crafty dissector,
You grabbed at the gold sure; had no need to pack cents
Into your versicles.
Clear sight's elector!
Fifine Answers "Why is it that, disgraced they seem to relish life
the more?"—FIFINE AT THE FAIR, VII, 5. ”

“ And of pain and weariness and all the wrack
Of light-contending thoughts and battled-gleams,
(That our intelligence doth gain by strife against itself)
Of things we have not yet the earnèd right to clearly see. ”

“ Victor. "On the preparation of the soul for contemplation," where he distinguishes between cogitation, meditation, and contemplation.
In cogitation the thought or attention flits aimlessly about the subject.
In meditation it circles round it, that is, it views it systematically, from all sides, gaining perspective. ”

“ I wonder why the wind, even the wind doth seem
To mock me now, all night, all night, and
Have I strayed among the cliffs here
They say, some day I'll fall
Down through the sea-bit fissures, and no more
Know the warm cloak of sun, or bathe
The dew across my tired eyes to comfort them.
They try to keep me hid within four walls.
I will not stay! ”

“ Yeats in his "Celtic Twilight" treated of such, and I because in such a mood, feeling myself divided between myself corporal and a self aetherial "a dweller by streams and in woodland," eternal because simple in elements
" Aeternus quia simplex naturae."
Being freed of the weight of a soul "capable of salvation or damnation," a grievous striving thing that after much straining was mercifully taken from me ”

“ Bid the world's hounds come to horn!" ”

“ The clouds that are spray to its sea.
Na Audiart Que be-m vols mal.
NOTE: Any one who has read anything of the troubadours knows well the tale of Bertran of Born and My Lady Maent of Montaignac, and knows also the song he made when she would none of him, the song wherein he, seeking to find or make her equal, begs of each preeminent lady of Langue d'Oc some trait or some fair semblance: thus of Cembelins her "esgart amoros" to wit, her love-lit glance, of Aelis her speech free-running, of the Vicomptess of Chales her throat and her two hands, at Roacoart of Anhes her hair golden as Iseult's ”

“ The rosy, slender fingers of the dawn." ”

“ NOTES NOTE PRECEDENT TO "LA FRAISNE"
"When the soul is exhausted of fire, then doth the spirit return unto its primal nature and there is upon it a peace great and of the woodland
"magna pax et silvestris."
Then becometh it kin to the faun and the dryad, a woodland-dweller amid the rocks and streams
"consociis faunis dryadisque inter saxa sylvarum."
Janus of Basel. [1]
Also has Mr. ”

“ Arnaut of Marvoil, a troubadour, date 1170-1200.
The Countess (in her own right) of Burlatz, and of Beziers, being
the wife of
The Vicomte of Beziers.
Alfonso IV of Aragon.
Tibors of Mont-Ausier. For fuller mention of her see the
"razos" on Bertran of Born. She is contemporary with the
other persons, but I have no strict warrant for dragging her name
into this particular affair.
Marco Londonio's Italian version of "Nel Biancheggiar":
Nel biancheggiar di delicata rosa
Risplendono i colori
D' occidentali fiori
Prima che l'alba, in esultanza ascosa
Voglia baciarli. ”