Provença : $b Poems selected from Personae, Exultations, and Canzoniere of Ezra PoundPound, Ezra
General
Provença : $b Poems selected from Personae, Exultations, and Canzoniere of Ezra Pound
Pound, Ezra
American poetry -- 20th century
He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue
But never a cry cried he.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o’ Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea.
Like the sea that brooks no voyaging
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi’ twey words spoke’ suddently.
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb
Sin’ they nailed him to the tree.
[9] Fere = Mate, Companion.
PORTRAIT
From “La Mère Inconnue.”
Now would I weave her portrait out of all dim splendour.
Of Provence and far halls of memory,
Lo, there come echoes, faint diversity
Of blended bells at even’s end, or
As the distant seas should send her
The tribute of their trembling, ceaselessly
Resonant. Out of all dreams that be,
Say, shall I bid the deepest dreams attend her?
Nay! For I have seen the purplest shadows stand
Alway with reverent chere that looked on her,
Silence himself is grown her worshipper
And ever doth attend her in that land
Wherein she reigneth, wherefore let there stir
Naught but the softest voices, praising her.
THE EYES
Rest, Master, for we be a-weary, weary,
And would feel the fingers of the wind
Upon these lids that lie over us
Sodden and lead-heavy.
Rest, brother, for lo! the dawn is without!
The yellow flame paleth
And the wax runs low.
Free us, for without be goodly colours,
Green of the wood-moss and flower-colours,
And coolness beneath the trees.
Free us, for we perish
In this ever-flowing monotony
Of ugly print marks, black
Upon white parchment.
Free us, for there is one
Whose smile more availeth
Than all the age-old knowledge of thy books:
And we would look thereon.
NILS LYKKE
“Beautiful, infinite memories
That are a-plucking at my heart,
Why will you be ever calling and a-calling,
And a-murmuring in the dark there?
And a-reaching out your long hands
Between me and my beloved?
“And why will you be ever a-casting
The black shadow of your beauty
On the white face of my beloved
And a-glinting in the pools of her eyes?”
“FAIR HELENA” BY RACKHAM
“_What I love best in all the world?_”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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