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 […]

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 […]

The Kingfisher poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

In a year the nightingales were said to be so loud they drowned out slumber, and peafowl strolled screaming beside the ruined nunnery, through the long evening of a dazzled pub crawl, the halcyon color, portholed by those eye-spots’ stunning tapestry, unsettled the pastoral nightfall with amazements opening. Months later, intermission in a […]

The Cooling Tower poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

By night a laddered diagram seen from the windows of this bedroom town-rayflowcrs of dread ascending and descending- identifies the cooling tower, insomniac vision revealed by day as a grayed obese archangel, its twiddled dirk of ash and rhinestone a metronomic rerun of some half obliterated last nightmare of Eden in the West: […]

Stacking The Straw poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

In those days the oatfields’ fenced-in vats of running platinum, the yellower alloy of wheat and barley, whose end, however gorgeous all that trammeled rippling in the wind, came down to toaster-fodder, cereal as a commodity, were a rebuke to permanence-to bronze or any metal less utilitarian than the barbed braids that marked […]

Stacking The Straw poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

In those days the oatfields’ fenced-in vats of running platinum, the yellower alloy of wheat and barley, whose end, however gorgeous all that trammeled rippling in the wind, came down to toaster-fodder, cereal as a commodity, were a rebuke to permanence-to bronze or any metal less utilitarian than the barbed braids that marked […]

Gradual Clearing poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

Late in the day the fog wrung itself out like a sponge in glades of rain, sieving the half-invisible cove with speartips; then, in a lifting of wisps and scarves, of smoke-rings from about the islands, disclosing what had been wavering fishnet plissé as a smoothness of peau-de-soie or just-ironed percale, with a […]

Brought From Beyond poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

The magpie and the bowerbird, its odd predilection unheard of by Marco Polo when he came upon, high in Badakhshan, that blue stone’s embedded glint of pyrites, like the dance of light on water, or of angels (the surface tension of the Absolute) on nothing, turned, by processes already ancient, into pigment: ultramarine, […]

A Hairline Fracture poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

Whatever went wrong, that week, was more than weather: a shoddy streak in the fabric of the air of London that disintegrated into pollen and came charging down by the bushelful, an abrasive the color of gold dust, eroding the tearducts and littering the sidewalks in the neighborhood of Sloane Square, where the […]

A Cure At Porlock poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

For whatever did it-the cider at the Ship Inn, where the crowd from the bar that night had overflowed singing into Southey’s Corner, or an early warning of appendicitis- the remedy the chemist in the High Street purveyed was still a dose of kaopectate in morphine-the bane and the afflatus of S.T.C. when […]

Women’s Song Of The Corn poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

How beautiful are the corn rows, Stretching to the morning sun, Stretching to the evening sun. Very beautiful, the long rows of corn. How beautiful is the white corn, I husk it, I grind it. Very beautiful, my white corn. How beautiful is the red corn, I gather it and make fine meal, […]

Women’s Harvest Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

I am waving a ripe sunflower, I am scattering sunflower pollen to the four world-quarters. I am joyful because of my melons, I am joyful because of my beans, I am joyful because of my squashes. The sunflower waves. So did the corn wave When the wind blew against it, So did my […]

Women’s Song Of The Corn poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

How beautiful are the corn rows, Stretching to the morning sun, Stretching to the evening sun. Very beautiful, the long rows of corn. How beautiful is the white corn, I husk it, I grind it. Very beautiful, my white corn. How beautiful is the red corn, I gather it and make fine meal, […]

Women’s Harvest Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

I am waving a ripe sunflower, I am scattering sunflower pollen to the four world-quarters. I am joyful because of my melons, I am joyful because of my beans, I am joyful because of my squashes. The sunflower waves. So did the corn wave When the wind blew against it, So did my […]

White Currants poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

Shall I give you white currants? I do not know why, but I have a sudden fancy for this fruit. At the moment, the idea of them cherishes my senses, And they seem more desirable than flawless emeralds. Since I am, in fact, empty-handed, I might have chosen gems out of India, But […]

Vespers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

Last night, at sunset, The foxgloves were like tall altar candles. Could I have lifted you to the roof of the greenhouse, my Dear, I should have understood their burning. Amy LowellAmy Lawrence Lowell (1874 – 1925) was an American poetess that belonged to the informal imagist, an early modernist movement, […]

Two Lacquer Prints poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

The Emperor’s Garden ONCE, in the sultry heat of midsummer, An Emperor caused the miniature mountains in his garden To be covered with white silk, That so crowned, They might cool his eyes With the sparkle of snow. Meditation A wise man, Watching the stars pass across the sky, Remarked: In the upper […]

The Travelling Bear poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

GRASS-BLADES push up between the cobblestones And catch the sun on their flat sides Shooting it back, Gold and emerald, Into the eyes of passers-by. And over the cobblestones, Square-footed and heavy, Dances the trained bear. The cobbles cut his feet, And he has a ring in his nose But still he dances, […]

Towns in Colour poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

I Red Slippers Red slippers in a shop-window, and outside in the street, flaws of grey, windy sleet! Behind the polished glass, the slippers hang in long threads of red, festooning from the ceiling like stalactites of blood, flooding the eyes of passers-by with dripping colour, jamming their crimson reflections against the windows […]

To A Husband poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

Brighter than fireflies upon the Uji River Are your words in the dark, Beloved. Amy LowellAmy Lawrence Lowell (1874 – 1925) was an American poetess that belonged to the informal imagist, an early modernist movement, which promoted a return to classical values. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in […]

The Travelling Bear poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

GRASS-BLADES push up between the cobblestones And catch the sun on their flat sides Shooting it back, Gold and emerald, Into the eyes of passers-by. And over the cobblestones, Square-footed and heavy, Dances the trained bear. The cobbles cut his feet, And he has a ring in his nose But still he dances, […]

The Swans poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

The swans float and float Along the moat Around the Bishop’s garden, And the white clouds push Across a blue sky With edges that seem to draw in and harden. Two slim men of white bronze Beat each with a hammer on the end of a rod The hours of God. Striking a […]

The Starling poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

Forever the impenetrable wall Of self confines my poor rebellious soul, I never see the towering white clouds roll Before a sturdy wind, save through the small Barred window of my jail. I live a thrall With all my outer life a clipped, square hole, Rectangular; a fraction of a scroll Unwound and […]

The Pond poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

Cold, wet leaves Floating on moss-coloured water And the croaking of frogs- Cracked bell-notes in the twilight. Amy LowellAmy Lawrence Lowell (1874 – 1925) was an American poetess that belonged to the informal imagist, an early modernist movement, which promoted a return to classical values. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize […]