Silet (by Ezra Pound)

Silet
by Ezra Pound
(from Ripostes, 1912)

When I behold how black, immortal ink
Drips from my deathless pen—ah, well-away!
Why should we stop at all for what I think?
There is enough in what I chance to say.

It is enough that we once came together;
What is the use of setting it to rime?
When it is autumn do we get spring weather,
Or gather may of harsh northwindish time?

It is enough that we once came together;
What if the wind have turned against the rain?
It is enough that we once came together;
Time has seen this, and will not turn again;

And who are we, who know that last intent,
To plague to-morrow with a testament!

Verona 1911

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Au Jardin (by Ezra Pound)

Au Jardin
by Ezra Pound
[from Canzoni, 1911]

O you away high there,
                                 you that lean
From amber lattices upon the cobalt night,
I am below amid the pine trees,
Amid the little pine trees, hear me!

“The jester walked in the garden.”
                                                       Did he so?
Well, there’s no use your loving me
That way, Lady;
For I’ve nothing but songs to give you.

I am set wide upon the world’s ways
To say that life is, some way, a gay thing,
But you never string two days upon one wire
But there’ll come sorrow of it.
                                And I loved a love once,
Over beyond the moon there, 
                                I loved a love once,
And, may be, more times,

But she danced like a pink moth in the shrubbery.
Oh, I know you women from the “other folk,”
And it’ll all come right,
O’ Sundays.

“The jester walked in the garden.”
                                                       Did he so? 

 

*

Au Salon (by Ezra Pound)

Au Salon
by Ezra Pound
[from Canzoni, 1911]

          Her grave, sweet haughtiness 
          Pleaseth me, and in like wise
          Her quiet ironies.
          Others are beautiful, none more, some less.

I suppose, when poetry comes down to facts,
When our souls are returned to the gods 
                    and the spheres they belong in,
Here in the every-day where our acts
Rise up and judge us;

I suppose there are a few dozen verities
That no shift of mood can shake from us:

One place where we’d rather have tea
(Thus far hath modernity brought us)
“Tea” (Damn you!) 
                    Have tea, damn the Caesars,
Talk of the latest success, give wing to some scandal,
Garble a name we detest, and for prejudice?
Set loose the whole consummate pack 
          to bay like Sir Roger de Coverley’s

This our reward for our works, 
          sic crescit gloria mundi:
Some circle of not more than three 
          that we prefer to play up to,
Some few whom we’d rather please 
          than hear the whole aegrum vulgus
Splitting its beery jowl 
          a-meaowling our praises.

Some certain peculiar things, 
          cari laresque, penates,
Some certain accustomed forms, 
          the absolute unimportant. 
 

*

The Altar (by Ezra Pound)

The Altar
by Ezra Pound
[from Canzoni, 1911]

Let us build here an exquisite friendship,
The flame, the autumn, and the green rose of love
Fought out their strife here, ’tis a place of wonder;
Where these have been, meet ’tis, the ground is holy. 

*

Horæ Beatæ Inscriptio (by Ezra Pound)

Horæ Beatæ Inscriptio
by Ezra Pound
[from Canzoni, 1911]

How will this beauty, when I am far hence,
Sweep back upon me and engulf my mind!

How will these hours, when we twain are gray,
Turned in their sapphire tide, come flooding o’er us! 

*

The Flame (by Ezra Pound)

The Flame
by Ezra Pound
[from Canzoni, 1911]

‘Tis not a game that plays at mates and mating,
Provençe knew;
‘Tis not a game of barter, lands and houses,
Provençe knew.
We who are wise beyond your dream of wisdom,
Drink our immortal moments; we “pass through.”
We have gone forth beyond your bonds and borders,
Provençe knew;
And all the tales of Oisin say but this:
That man doth pass the net of days and hours.
Where time is shrivelled down to time’s seed corn
We of the Ever-living, in that light
Meet through our veils and whisper, and of love.

O smoke and shadow of a darkling world,
These, and the rest, and all the rest we knew.

‘Tis not a game that plays at mates and mating,
‘Tis not a game of barter, lands and houses,
‘Tis not “of days and nights” and troubling years,
Of cheeks grown sunken and glad hair gone gray;
There is the subtler music, the clear light
Where time burns back about th’ eternal embers.
We are not shut from all the thousand heavens:
Lo, there are many gods whom we have seen,
Folk of unearthly fashion, places splendid,
Bulwarks of beryl and of chrysoprase.

Sapphire Benacus, in thy mists and thee
Nature herself’s turned metaphysical,
Who can look on that blue and not believe?

Thou hooded opal, thou eternal pearl,
O thou dark secret with a shimmering floor,
Through all thy various mood I know thee mine;

If I have merged my soul, or utterly
Am solved and bound in, through aught here on earth,
There canst thou find me, O thou anxious thou,
Who call’st about my gates for some lost me;
I say my soul flowed back, became translucent.
Search not my lips, O Love, let go my hands,
This thing that moves as man is no more mortal.
If thou hast seen my shade sans character,
If thou hast seen that mirror of all moments,
That glass to all things that o’ershadow it,
Call not that mirror me, for I have slipped
Your grasp, I have eluded.

*

The House of Splendour (by Ezra Pound)

The House of Splendour
by Ezra Pound
[from Canzoni, 1911]

Tis Evanoe’s,
A house not made with hands,
But out somewhere beyond the worldly ways
Her gold is spread, above, around, inwoven;
Strange ways and walls are fashioned out of it.

And I have seen my Lady in the sun,
Her hair was spread about, a sheaf of wings,
And red the sunlight was, behind it all.

And I have seen her there within her house,
With six great sapphires hung along the wall,
Low, panel-shaped, a-level with her knees,
And all her robe was woven of pale gold.

There are there many rooms and all of gold,
Of woven walls deep patterned, of email,
Of beaten work; and through the claret stone,
Set to some weaving, comes the aureate light.

Here am I come perforce my love of her,
Behold mine adoration
Maketh me clear, and there are powers in this
Which, played on by the virtues of her soul,
Break down the four-square walls of standing time.

*

Translations and Adaptations from Heine (by Ezra Pound)

Translations and Adaptations from Heine
by Ezra Pound
[from Personæ, 1926]

     From “Die Heimkehr”

I

Is your hate, then, of such measure?
Do you, truly, so detest me?
Through all the world will I complain
Of how you have addressed me.

O ye lips that are ungrateful,
Hath it never once distressed you,
That you can say such awful things
Of any one who ever kissed you?


II

So thou hast forgotten fully
That I so long held thy heart wholly,
Thy little heart, so sweet and false and small
That there’s no thing more sweet or false at all.

Love and lay thou hast forgotten fully,
And my heart worked at them unduly.
I know not if the love or if the lay were better stuff,
But I know now, they both were good enough.


III

Tell me where thy lovely love is,
Whom thou once did sing so sweetly,
When the fairy flames enshrouded
Thee, and held thy heart completely.

All the flames are dead and sped now
And my heart is cold and sere;
Behold this book, the urn of ashes,
Tis my true love’s sepulchre.


IV

I dreamt that I was God Himself
Whom heavenly joy immerses,
And all the angels sat about
And praised my verses.


V

The mutilated choir boys
When I begin to sing
Complain about the awful noise
And call my voice too thick a thing.

When light their voices lift them up,
Bright notes against the ear,
Through trills and runs like crystal,
Ring delicate and clear.

They sing of Love that’s grown desirous,
Of Love, and joy that is Love’s inmost part,
And all the ladies swim through tears
Toward such a work of art.


VI

This delightful young man
Should not lack for honourers,
He propitiates me with oysters,
With Rhine wine and liqueurs.

How his coat and pants adorn him!
Yet his ties are more adorning,
In these he daily comes to ask me:
“Are you feeling well this morning?”

He speaks of my extended fame,
My wit, charm, definitions,
And is diligent to serve me,
Is detailed in his provisions.

In evening company he sets his face
In most spirituel positions,
And declaims before the ladies
My god-like compositions.

O what comfort is it for me
To find him such, when the days bring
No comfort, at my time of life when
All good things go vanishing.


     TRANSLATOR TO TRANSLATED

     O Harry Heine, curses be,
     I live too late to sup with thee!
     Who can demolish at such polished ease
     Philistia’s pomp and Art’s pomposities!


VII

     Song from “Die Harzreise”

I am the Princess Ilza
In Ilsenstein I fare,
Come with me to that castle
And we’ll be happy there.

Thy head will I cover over
With my waves’ clarity
Till thou forget thy sorrow,
O wounded sorrowfully.

Thou wilt in my white arms there
Nay, on my breast thou must
Forget and rest and dream there
For thine old legend-lust.

My lips and my heart are thine there
As they were his and mine.
His? Why the good King Harry’s,
And he is dead lang syne.

Dead men stay alway dead men.
Life is the live man’s part,
And I am fair and golden
With joy breathless at heart.

If my heart stay below there,
My crystal halls ring clear
To the dance of lords and ladies
In all their splendid gear.

The silken trains go rustling,
The spur-clinks sound between,
The dark dwarfs blow and bow there
Small horn and violin.

Yet shall my white arms hold thee,
That bound King Harry about.
Ah, I covered his ears with them
When the trumpet rang out.


VIII

     Night Song

And have you thoroughly kissed my lips;
     There was no particular haste,
And are you not ready when evening’s come?
     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.

 

*

Mr. Housman’s Message (by Ezra Pound)

Mr. Housman’s Message
by Ezra Pound
[from Personæ, 1926]

O woe, woe,
People are born and die,
We also shall be dead pretty soon
Therefore let us act as if we were
          dead already.

The bird sits on the hawthorn tree
But he dies also, presently.
Some lads get hung, and some get shot.
Woeful is this human lot.
          Woe! woe, etcetera . . .

London is a woeful place,
Shropshire is much pleasanter.
Then let us smile a little space
Upon fond nature’s morbid grace.
          Oh, Woe, woe, woe, etcetera . . . 


 

*

Satiemus (by Ezra Pound)

Satiemus
by Ezra Pound
[from Personæ, 1926]

What if I know thy speeches word by word?
And if thou knew’st I knew them wouldst thou speak?
What if I know thy speeches word by word,
And all the time thou sayest them o’er I said,
“Lo, one there was who bent her fair bright head,
Sighing as thou dost through the golden speech.”
Or, as our laughters mingle each with each,
As crushed lips take their respite fitfully,
What if my thoughts were turned in their mid reach
Whispering among them, “The fair dead
Must know such moments, thinking on the grass;
On how white dogwoods murmured overhead
In the bright glad days!”
How if the low dear sound within thy throat
Hath as faint lute-strings in its dim accord
Dim tales that blind me, running one by one
With times told over as we tell by rote;
What if I know thy laughter word by word
Nor find aught novel in thy merriment? 

*