section-1-21.html

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<h2>Poems <span>by</span> Ezra Pound.</h2>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>Salutation the Third</h3>
	<p>
		<span>Let us deride the smugness of “The Times”:</span>
		<br/>
		<span>
			<strong>Guffaw!</strong>
		</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">So much the gagged reviewers,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>It will pay them when the worms are wriggling in their vitals;</span>
		<br/>
		<span>These were they who objected to newness,</span>
		<br/>
		<span><strong>Here</strong> are their <strong>tomb-stones</strong>.</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">They supported the gag and the ring:</span>
		<br/>
		<span>A little black <strong>box</strong> contains them.</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1"><strong>So</strong> shall you be also,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>You slut-bellied obstructionist,</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">You sworn foe to free speech and good letters,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>You fungus, you continuous gangrene.</span>
	</p>
	<p>
		<span>Come, let us on with the new deal,</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">Let us be done with Jews and Jobbery,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let us <strong>spit</strong> upon those who fawn on the <strong>Jews</strong> for their money,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let us out to the pastures.</span>
	</p>
	<p>
		<span><strong>Perhaps</strong> I will die at thirty,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Perhaps you will have the pleasure of defiling my pauper’s grave,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>I wish you <strong>joy</strong>, I proffer you <strong>all</strong> my assistance.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>It has been your <strong>habit</strong> for long to do away with true poets,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>You either drive them mad, or else you blink at their suicides,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Or else you condone their drugs, and talk of insanity and genius,</span>
		<br/>
		<span><strong>But</strong> I will not go mad to please you.</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">I will not <strong>flatter</strong> you with an early death.</span>
		<br/>
		<span><strong>Oh, no!</strong> I will stick it out,</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">I will feel your hates wriggling about my feet,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>And I will laugh at you and mock you,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>And I will offer you consolations in irony,</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">O fools, detesters of Beauty.</span>
	</p>
	<p>
		<span>I have seen many who go about with supplications,</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">Afraid to say how they hate you.</span>
		<br/>
		<span><strong>Here</strong> is the taste of my <strong>boot</strong>,</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1"><strong>Caress</strong> it, lick off the <strong>blacking</strong>.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>Monumentum Aere, <abbr>Etc.</abbr></h3>
	<p>
		<span>You say that I take a good deal upon myself;</span>
		<br/>
		<span>That I strut in the robes of assumption.</span>
	</p>
	<p>
		<span>In a few years no one will remember the “buffo,”</span>
		<br/>
		<span>No one will remember the trivial parts of me,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>The comic detail will not be present.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>As for you, you will lie in the earth,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>And it is doubtful if even your manure will be rich enough</span>
		<br/>
		<span>To keep grass</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Over your grave</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>Come My Cantilations.</h3>
	<p>
		<span>Come my cantilations,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let us dump our hatreds into one bunch and be done with them,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Hot sun, clear water, fresh wind,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let me be free of pavements,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let me be free of the printers.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let come beautiful people</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Wearing raw silk of good colour,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let come the graceful speakers,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let come the ready of wit,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Let come the gay of manner, the insolent and the exulting.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>We speak of burnished lakes,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>And of dry air, as clear as metal.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>Before Sleep.</h3>
	<h4>I.</h4>
	<p>
		<span>The lateral vibrations caress me,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>They leap and caress me,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>They work pathetically in my favour,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>They seek my financial good.</span>
	</p>
	<p>
		<span>She of the spear, stands present.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>The gods of the underworld attend me, O Annuis.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>To these are they of thy company.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>With a pathetic solicitude, they attend me.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Undulent,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Their realm is the lateral courses.</span>
	</p>
	<h4>II.</h4>
	<p>
		<span class="i2">Light!</span>
		<br/>
		<span>I am up to follow thee, Pallas.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Up and out of their caresses.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>You were gone up as rocket,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Bending your passages from right to left and from left to right</span>
		<br/>
		<span>In the flat projection of a spiral.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>The gods of drugged sleep attend me,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Wishing me well.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>I am up to follow thee, PaIlas.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>His Vision of a Certain Lady<br/>Post Mortem.</h3>
	<p>
		<span>A brown, fat babe sitting in the lotus,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>And you were glad and laughing,</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">With a laughter not of this world.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>It is good to splash in the water</span>
		<br/>
		<span>And laughter is the end of all things.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>Epitaphs.</h3>
	<h4 id="fu-i">Fu I. <a href="#endnote-1">*</a></h4>
	<p>
		<span>“Fu I loved the green hills and the white clouds,</span>
		<br />
		<span>Alas, he died of drink.”</span>
	</p>
	<h4>Li Po.</h4>
	<p>
		<span>And Li Po also died drunk.</span>
		<br />
		<span>He tried to embrace a moon</span>
		<br />
		<span>In the yellow river.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3 lang="la">Fratres Minores.</h3>
	<p>
		<span>With minds still hovering above their testicles</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Certain poets here and in France</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Still sigh over established and natural fact</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Long since fully discussed by Ovid.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>They howl. They complain in delicate and exhausted metres</span>
		<br/>
		<span>That the twitching of three abdominal nerves</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Is incapable of producing a lasting Nirvana.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<figure>
	<img src="assets/images/section-1-21-1.png" alt="A woodblock print of an abstract image. Shapes resembling frames, arrows and boats viewed from the top cluster in the bottom right and extend to the top left." />
	<figcaption>
		<span>Cape of Good Hope.</span>
		<span>Edward Wadsworth.</span>
	</figcaption>
</figure>

<figure>
	<img src="assets/images/section-1-21-2.png" alt="A woodblock print of an abstract image. The background could be seen to be a patchwork of fields, on which is overlaid various shapes including black circles and spirals." />
	<figcaption>
		<span>A Short Flight.</span>
		<span>Edward Wadsworth.</span>
	</figcaption>
</figure>

<figure>
	<img src="assets/images/section-1-21-3.png" alt="A woodblock print of an abstract image. The image could be interpreted as a group of soldiers in helmets with their heads down, carrying guns underneath an overcast sky." />
	<figcaption>
		<span>March.</span>
		<span>Edward Wadsworth.</span>
	</figcaption>
</figure>

<figure>
	<img src="assets/images/section-1-21-4.png" alt="A woodblock print of an abstract image, made of interlocking shapes of all differents sizes, overlaid with beams of light." />
	<figcaption>
		<span>Radiation.</span>
		<span>Edward Wadsworth.</span>
	</figcaption>
</figure>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>Women Before a Shop.</h3>
	<p>
		<span>The gew-gaws of false amber and false turquoise attract them.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>“Like to like nature.” These agglutinous yellows!</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3 lang="fr">L’Art.</h3>
	<p>
		<span>Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Crushed strawberries! Come let us feast our eyes.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>The New Cake of Soap.</h3>
	<p>
		<span>Lo, how it gleams and glistens in the sun</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Like the cheek of a Chesterton.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3 lang="la">Meditatio.</h3>
	<p>
		<span>When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>I am compelled to admit</span>
		<br/>
		<span>That man is the superior animal.</span>
	</p>
	<p>
		<span>When I consider the curious habits of man,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<article class="poem">
	<h3>Pastoral.</h3>
	<div class="epigraph">
		<blockquote>
			<p>“The Greenest Growth of Maytime.”</p>
		</blockquote>
		<cite>—<abbr>A. C. S.</abbr></cite>
	</div>
	<p>
		<span>The young lady opposite</span>
		<br/>
		<span>Has such beautiful hands</span>
		<br/>
		<span>That I sit enchanted</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i1">While she combs her hair in décolleté.</span>
		<br/>
		<span>I have no shame whatever</span>
		<br/>
		<span>In watching the performance,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>The bareness of her delicate</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i2">Hands and fingers does not</span>
		<br/>
		<span class="i2">In the least embarrass me,</span>
		<br/>
		<span><strong>But</strong> God forbid that I should gain further acquaintance,</span>
		<br/>
		<span>For her laughter frightens even the street hawker</span>
		<br/>
		<span>And the alley cat dies of a migraine.</span>
	</p>
</article>

<p class="endnote" id="endnote-1">* Fu I was born in 534 <abbr>A.D.</abbr> and died in 639. This is his epitaph very much as he wrote it. <a href="#fu-i">⤴</a></p>