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Read Ebook: Personae by Pound Ezra
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Ebook has 228 lines and 19305 words, and 5 pages
"Cat's i' the water butt!" Thought's in your verse-barrel, Tell us this thing rather, then we'll believe you, You, Master Bob Browning, spite your apparel Jump to your sense and give praise as we'd lief do.
You wheeze as a head-cold long-tonsilled Calliope, But God! what a sight you ha' got o' our in'ards, Mad as a hatter but surely no Myope, 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
Sharing his exile that hath borne the flame, Joining his freedom that hath drunk the shame And known the torture of the Skull-place hours Free and so bound, that mingled with the powers Of air and sea and light his soul's far reach Yet strictured did the body-lips beseech "To drink" "I thirst." And then the sponge of gall.
Wherefore we wastrels that the grey road's call Doth master and make slaves and yet make free, Drink all of life and quaffing lustily Take bitter with the sweet without complain And sharers in his drink defy the pain That makes you fearful to unfurl your souls.
Call! eh bye! the little door at twelve!
I meet you there myself.
In Tempore Senectutis
"For we are old And the earth passion dieth; We have watched him die a thousand times, When he wanes an old wind crieth, For we are old And passion hath died for us a thousand times But we grew never weary.
Memory faileth, as the lotus-loved chimes Sink into fluttering of wind, But we grow never weary For we are old.
The strange night-wonder of your eyes Dies not, though passion flieth Along the star fields of Arcturus And is no more unto our hands; My lips are cold And yet we twain are never weary, And the strange night-wonder is upon us, The leaves hold our wonder in their flutterings, The wind fills our mouths with strange words For our wonder that grows not old.
The moth-hour of our day is upon us Holding the dawn; There is strange Night-wonder in our eyes Because the Moth-Hour leadeth the dawn As a maiden, holding her fingers, The rosy, slender fingers of the dawn."
He saith: "Red spears bore the warrior dawn Of old Strange! Love, hast thou forgotten The red spears of the dawn, The pennants of the morning?"
She saith: "Nay, I remember, but now Cometh the Dawn, and the Moth-Hour Together with him; softly For we are old."
Famam Librosque Cano
Your songs? Oh! The little mothers Will sing them in the twilight, And when the night Shrinketh the kiss of the dawn That loves and kills, What time the swallow fills Her note, the little rabbit folk That some call children, Such as are up and wide Will laugh your verses to each other, Pulling on their shoes for the day's business, Serious child business that the world Laughs at, and grows stale; Such is the tale --Part of it--of thy song-life
Mine?
A book is known by them that read That same. Thy public in my screed Is listed. Well! Some score years hence Behold mine audience, As we had seen him yesterday.
Scrawny, be-spectacled, out at heels, Such an one as the world feels A sort of curse against its guzzling And its age-lasting wallow for red greed And yet; full speed Though it should run for its own getting, Will turn aside to sneer at 'Cause he hath No coin, no will to snatch the aftermath Of Mammon.
Such an one as women draw away from For the tobacco ashes scattered on his coat And sith his throat Show razor's unfamiliarity And three days' beard:
Such an one picking a ragged Backless copy from the stall, Too cheap for cataloguing, Loquitur,
Scriptor Ignotus
Ferrara 1715
To K.R.H.
"When I see thee as some poor song-bird Battering its wings, against this cage we Today, Then would I speak comfort unto thee, From out the heights I dwell in, when That great sense of power is upon me And I see my greater soul-self bending Sibylwise with that great forty year epic That you know of, yet unwrit But as some child's toy 'tween my fingers, And see the sculptors of new ages carve me thus, And model with the music of my couplets in their hearts:
Surely if in the end the epic And the small kind deed are one; If to God the child's toy and the epic are the same, E'en so, did one make a child's toy, He might wright it well And cunningly, that the child might Keep it for his children's children And all have joy thereof.
Dear, an this dream come true, Then shall all men say of thee "She 'twas that played him power at life's morn, And at the twilight Evensong, And God's peace dwelt in the mingled chords She drew from out the shadows of the past, And old world melodies that else He had known only in his dreams Of Iseult and of Beatrice.
So hath the boon been given, by the poets of old time Yet with my lesser power shall I not strive To give it thee?
All ends of things are with Him From whom are all things in their essence. If my power be lesser Shall my striving be less keen? But rather more! if I would reach the goal, Take then the striving! "And if," for so the Florentine hath writ When having put all his heart Into his "Youth's Dear Book" He yet strove to do more honour To that lady dwelling in his inmost soul He would wax yet greater To make her earthly glory more. Though sight of hell and heaven were price thereof, If so it be His will, with whom Are all things and through whom Are all things good, Will I make for thee and for the beauty of thy music A new thing As hath not heretofore been writ. Take then my promise!
Praise of Ysolt
In vain have I striven to teach my heart to bow; In vain have I said to him "There be many singers greater than thou."
But his answer cometh, as winds and as lutany. As a vague crying upon the night That leaveth me no rest, saying ever, "Song, a song."
Their echoes play upon each other in the twilight Seeking ever a song. Lo, I am worn with travail And the wandering of many roads hath made my eyes As dark red circles filled with dust. Yet there is a trembling upon me in the twilight, And little red elf words crying "A song," Little grey elf words crying for a song, Little brown leaf words crying "A song," Little green leaf words crying for a song.
The words are as leaves, old brown leaves in the spring time Blowing they know not whither, seeking a song.
White words as snow flakes but they are cold Moss words, lip words, words of slow streams.
In vain have I striven to teach my soul to bow, In vain have I pled with him, "There be greater souls than thou."
For in the morn of my years there came a woman As moon light calling As the moon calleth the tides, "Song, a song." Wherefore I made her a song and she went from me As the moon doth from the sea, But still came the leaf words, little brown elf words Saying "The soul sendeth us." "A song, a song!" And in vain I cried unto them "I have no song For she I sang of hath gone from me."
But my soul sent a woman, a woman of the wonder folk, A woman as fire upon the pine woods crying "Song, a song." As the flame crieth unto the sap. My song was ablaze with her and she went from me As flame leaveth the embers so went she unto new forests And the words were with me crying ever "Song, a song."
And I "I have no song," 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
Sometimes I feel thy cheek against my face Close-pressing, soft as is the South's first breath That all the subtle earth-things summoneth To spring in wood-land and in meadow space.
Yea sometimes in a bustling man-filled place Me seemeth some-wise thy hair wandereth Across mine eyes, as mist that halloweth The air awhile and giveth all things grace.
Or on still evenings when the rain falls close There comes a tremor in the drops, and fast My pulses run, knowing thy thought hath passed That beareth thee as doth the wind a rose.
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:
All they that with strange sadness in their eyes Ponder in silence o'er earth's queynt devyse?
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