Grace Before Song poem – Ezra Pound poems
Lord God of heaven that with mercy dight Th’alternate prayer wheel of the night and light Eternal hath to thee, and in whose sight Our days as rain drops in the sea surge fall, As bright white drops upon a leaden sea Grant so my songs to this grey folk may be: As drops […]
Further Instructions poem – Ezra Pound poems
Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions. Let us express our envy for the man with a steady job and no worry about the future. You are very idle, my songs, I fear you will come to a bad end. You stand about the streets, You loiter at the corners and bus-stops, […]
Francesca poem – Ezra Pound poems
You came in out of the night And there were flowers in your hand, Now you will come out of a confusion of people, Out of a turmoil of speech about you. I who have seen you amid the primal things Was angry when they spoke your name IN ordinary places. I would that […]
Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord poem – Ezra Pound poems
O fan of white silk, clear as frost on the grass-blade, You also are laid aside. *** Ezra Pound Poems by Ezra Pound Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) is one of the most influential […]
Ezra on the Strike poem – Ezra Pound poems
Wal, Thanksgivin’ do be comin’ round. With the price of turkeys on the bound, And coal, by gum! Thet were just found, Is surely gettin’ cheaper. The winds will soon begin to howl, And winter, in its yearly growl, Across the medders begin to prowl, And Jack Frost gettin’ deeper. By shucks! It seems […]
Epilogue poem – Ezra Pound poems
O chansons foregoing You were a seven days’ wonder. When you came out in the magazines You created considerable stir in Chicago, And now you are stale and worn out, You’re a very depleted fashion, A hoop-skirt, a calash, An homely, transient antiquity. Only emotion remains. Your emotions? Are those of a maitre-de-cafe. […]
Envoi poem – Ezra Pound poems
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, […]
E.P. Ode Pour L’election De Son Sepulchre poem – Ezra Pound poems
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; […]
Dance Figure poem – Ezra Pound poems
For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee Dark-eyed, O woman of my dreams, Ivory sandalled, There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet. I have not found thee in the tents, In the broken darkness. I have not found thee at the well-head Among the women with pitchers. Thine arms […]
Cino poem – Ezra Pound poems
Italian Campagna 1309, the open road Bah! I have sung women in three cities, But it is all the same; And I will sing of the sun. Lips, words, and you snare them, Dreams, words, and they are as jewels, Strange spells of old deity, Ravens, nights, allurement: And they are not; Having become […]
Canto XLIX poem – Ezra Pound poems
For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses: Rain; empty river; a voyage, Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight Under the cabin roof was one lantern. The reeds are heavy; bent; and the bamboos speak as if weeping. Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes against sunset Evening is like […]
Canto XIII poem – Ezra Pound poems
Kung walked by the dynastic temple and into the cedar grove, and then out by the lower river, And with him Khieu Tchi and Tian the low speaking And “we are unknown,” said Kung, “You will take up charioteering? “Then you will become known, “Or perhaps I should take up charioterring, or archery? “Or […]
Canto I poem – Ezra Pound poems
And then went down to the ship, Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and We set up mast and sail on that swart ship, Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward Bore us onward with bellying canvas, Crice’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess. […]
Cantico del Sole poem – Ezra Pound poems
The thought of what America would be like If the Classics had a wide circulation Troubles my sleep, The thought of what America, The thought of what America,The thought of what America would be like If the Classics had a wide circulation Troubles my sleep. Nunc dimittis, now lettest thou thy servant, Now lettest […]
Before Sleep poem – Ezra Pound poems
The lateral vibrations caress me, They leap and caress me, They work pathetically in my favour, They seek my financial good. She of the spear stands present. The gods of the underworld attend me, O Annubis, These are they of thy company. With a pathetic solicitude they attend me; Undulant, Their realm is the […]
Ballad of the Goodly Fere poem – Ezra Pound poems
Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion. Fere=Mate, Companion. Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all For the priests and the gallows tree? Aye lover he was of brawny men, O’ ships and the open sea. When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man His smile was good to see, “First let […]
Ballad for Gloom poem – Ezra Pound poems
For God, our God is a gallant foe That playeth behind the veil. I have loved my God as a child at heart That seeketh deep bosoms for rest, I have loved my God as a maid to man— But lo, this thing is best: To love your God as a gallant foe that […]
And the days are not full enough poem – Ezra Pound poems
And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass *** Ezra Pound Poems by Ezra Pound Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 […]
Ancient Music poem – Ezra Pound poems
Winter is icummen in, Lhude sing Goddamm. Raineth drop and staineth slop, And how the wind doth ramm! Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham. Freezeth river, turneth liver, Damn you, sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm, So ‘gainst the winter’s balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing […]
An Immorality poem – Ezra Pound poems
Sing we for love and idleness, Naught else is worth the having. Though I have been in many a land, There is naught else in living. And I would rather have my sweet, Though rose-leaves die of grieving, Than do high deeds in Hungary To pass all men’s believing. […]
Alba poem – Ezra Pound poems
As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley She lay beside me in the dawn. *** Ezra Pound Poems by Ezra Pound Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) is one of the most influential […]
A Virginal poem – Ezra Pound poems
No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately. I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness, For my surrounding air hath a new lightness; Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly And left me cloaked as with a gauze of æther; As with sweet leaves; as with subtle […]
A Pact poem – Ezra Pound poems
I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman– I have detested you long enough. I come to you as a grown child Who has had a pig-headed father; I am old enough now to make friends. It was you that broke the new wood, Now is a time for carving. We have one sap […]
A Girl by Ezra Pound
The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast- Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms. Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child – so high – you are, And all this is folly […]
You Say You Love poem – John Keats poems
I You say you love ; but with a voice Chaster than a nun’s, who singeth The soft Vespers to herself While the chime-bell ringeth- O love me truly! II You say you love; but with a smile Cold as sunrise in September, As you were Saint Cupid ‘s nun, And kept his […]
Written In The Cottage Where Burns Was Born poem – John Keats poems
This mortal body of a thousand days Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room, Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays, Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom! My pulse is warm with thine old barley-bree, My head is light with pledging a great soul, My eyes are […]
Woman! When I Behold Thee Flippant, Vain poem – John Keats poems
Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain, Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies; Without that modest softening that enhances The downcast eye, repentant of the pain That its mild light creates to heal again: E’en then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances, E’en then my soul with exultation dances For that to […]
What The Thrush Said. Lines From A Letter To John Hamilton Reynolds poem – John Keats poems
O thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind, Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist And the black elm tops ‘mong the freezing stars, To thee the spring will be a harvest-time. O thou, whose only book has been the light Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on Night after […]
Two Sonnets. To Haydon, With A Sonnet Written On Seeing The Elgin Marbles poem – John Keats poems
I. Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak Definitively of these mighty things; Forgive me, that I have not eagle’s wings, That what I want I know not where to seek, And think that I would not be over-meek, In rolling out upfollowed thunderings, Even to the steep of Heliconian springs, Were I […]
Two Sonnets On Fame poem – John Keats poems
I. Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy To those who woo her with too slavish knees, But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy, And dotes the more upon a heart at ease; She is a Gypsy,-will not speak to those Who have not learnt to be content without her; A […]
Two Or Three poem – John Keats poems
Two or three Posies With two or three simples– Two or three Noses With two or three pimples– Two or three wise men And two or three ninny’s– Two or three guineas– Two or three raps At two or three doors– Two or three naps Of two or three hours– Two or three […]
Translated From A Sonnet Of Ronsard poem – John Keats poems
Nature withheld Cassandra in the skies For more adornment a full thousand years; She took their cream of Beauty’s fairest dyes, And shap’d and tinted her above all Peers: Meanwhile Love kept her dearly with his wings, And underneath their shadow fill’d her eyes With such a richness that the cloudy Kings Of […]
To The Ladies Who Saw Me Crowned poem – John Keats poems
WHAT is there in the universal Earth More lovely than a Wreath from the bay tree? Haply a Halo round the Moon a glee Circling from three sweet pair of Lips in Mirth; And haply you will say the dewy birth Of morning Roses ripplings tenderly Spread by the Halcyon’s breast upon the […]
To Some Ladies poem – John Keats poems
What though while the wonders of nature exploring, I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend; Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring, Bless Cynthia’s face, the enthusiast’s friend: Yet over the steep, whence the mountain stream rushes, With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove; Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate gushes, […]
To George Felton Mathew poem – John Keats poems
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong, And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song; Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view A fate more pleasing, a delight more true Than that in which the brother Poets joy’d, Who with combined powers, their wit employ’d To raise a trophy to the drama’s muses. […]
To Charles Cowden Clarke poem – John Keats poems
Oft have you seen a swan superbly frowning, And with proud breast his own white shadow crowning; He slants his neck beneath the waters bright So silently, it seems a beam of light Come from the galaxy: anon he sports,– With outspread wings the Naiad Zephyr courts, Or ruffles all the surface of […]
The Gadfly poem – John Keats poems
1. All gentle folks who owe a grudge To any living thing Open your ears and stay your t[r]udge Whilst I in dudgeon sing. 2. The Gadfly he hath stung me sore– O may he ne’er sting you! But we have many a horrid bore He may sting black and blue. 3. Has […]
The Eve Of Saint Mark. A Fragment poem – John Keats poems
Upon a Sabbath-day it fell; Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell That call’d the folk to evening prayer; The city streets were clean and fair From wholesome drench of April rains; And, on the western window panes, The chilly sunset faintly told Of unmatur’d green vallies cold, Of the green thorny bloomless hedge, Of […]
The Devon Maid: Stanzas Sent In A Letter To B. R. Haydon poem – John Keats poems
1. Where be ye going, you Devon maid? And what have ye there i’ the basket? Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy, Will ye give me some cream if I ask it? 2. I love your meads, and I love your flowers, And I love your junkets mainly, But ‘hind […]
The Cap And Bells; Or, The Jealousies: A Faery Tale — Unfinished poem – John Keats poems
John Keats I. In midmost Ind, beside Hydaspes cool, There stood, or hover’d, tremulous in the air, A faery city ‘neath the potent rule Of Emperor Elfinan; fam’d ev’rywhere For love of mortal women, maidens fair, Whose lips were solid, whose soft hands were made Of a fit mould and beauty, ripe and […]