The Project Gutenberg eBook of Des Imagistes, by Ezra Pound

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Title: Des Imagistes

Subtitle: An Anthology

Author: Ezra Pound

Release Date: December 28, 2015 [EBook #50782]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Jana Srna, Elizabeth Oscanyan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ***

DES IMAGISTES

«Καὶ κείνα Σικελά, καὶ ἐν Αἰτναίαισιν ἔπαιζεν

ἀόσι, καὶ μέλος ᾖδε τὸ Δώριον.»

Επιτάφιος Βίωνος

“And she also was of Sikilia and was gay in

the valleys of Ætna, and knew the Doric

singing.”

DES IMAGISTES

AN ANTHOLOGY

NEW YORK

ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI

96 FIFTH AVENUE

1914

Copyright, 1914

By

Albert and Charles Boni

CONTENTS

RICHARD ALDINGTON

Choricos     7

To a Greek Marble     10

Au Vieux Jardin     11

Lesbia     12

Beauty Thou Hast Hurt Me Overmuch     13

Argyria     14

In the Via Sestina     15

The River     16

Bromios     17

To Atthis     19

H. D.

Sitalkas     20

Hermes of the Ways I     21

Hermes of the Ways II     22

Priapus     24

Acon     26

Hermonax     28

Epigram     30

F. S. FLINT

I     31

II Hallucination     32

III     33

IV     34

V The Swan     35

SKIPWITH CANNÉLL

Nocturnes     36

AMY LOWELL

In a Garden     38

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

Postlude     39

JAMES JOYCE

I Hear an Army     40

EZRA POUND

Δώρια     41

The Return     42

After Ch’u Yuan     43

Liu Ch’e     44

Fan-Piece for Her Imperial Lord     45

Ts’ai Chi’h     46

FORD MADOX HUEFFER

In the Little Old Market-Place     47

ALLEN UPWARD

Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar     51

JOHN COURNOS after K. TETMAIER

The Rose     54

DOCUMENTS

To Hulme (T. E.) and Fitzgerald     57

Vates, the Social Reformer     59

Fragments Addressed by Clearchus H. to Aldi     62

Bibliography     63

CHORICOS

The ancient songs

Pass deathward mournfully.

Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths,

Regretful eyes, and drooping breasts and wings—

Symbols of ancient songs

Mournfully passing

Down to the great white surges,

Watched of none

Save the frail sea-birds

And the lithe pale girls,

Daughters of Okeanus.

And the songs pass

From the green land

Which lies upon the waves as a leaf

On the flowers of hyacinth;

And they pass from the waters,

The manifold winds and the dim moon,

And they come,

Silently winging through soft Kimmerian dusk,

To the quiet level lands

That she keeps for us all,

That she wrought for us all for sleep

In the silver days of the earth’s dawning—

Proserpina, daughter of Zeus.

And we turn from the Kuprian’s breasts,

And we turn from thee,

Phoibos Apollon,

And we turn from the music of old

And the hills that we loved and the meads,

And we turn from the fiery day,

And the lips that were over sweet;

For silently

Brushing the fields with red-shod feet,

With purple robe

Searing the flowers as with a sudden flame,

Death,

Thou hast come upon us.

And of all the ancient songs

Passing to the swallow-blue halls

By the dark streams of Persephone,

This only remains:

That we turn to thee,

Death,

That we turn to thee, singing

One last song.

O Death,

Thou art an healing wind

That blowest over white flowers

A-tremble with dew;

Thou art a wind flowing

Over dark leagues of lonely sea;

Thou art the dusk and the fragrance;

Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling;

Thou art the pale peace of one

Satiate with old desires;

Thou art the silence of beauty,

And we look no more for the morning

We yearn no more for the sun,

Since with thy white hands,

Death,

Thou crownest us with the pallid chaplets,

The slim colourless poppies

Which in thy garden alone

Softly thou gatherest.

And silently,

And with slow feet approaching,

And with bowed head and unlit eyes,

We kneel before thee:

And thou, leaning towards us,

Caressingly layest upon us

Flowers from thy thin cold hands,

And, smiling as a chaste woman

Knowing love in her heart,

Thou sealest our eyes

And the illimitable quietude

Comes gently upon us.

RICHARD ALDINGTON

TO A GREEK MARBLE

Πότνια, πότνια

White grave goddess,

Pity my sadness,

O silence of Paros.

I am not of these about thy feet,

These garments and decorum;

I am thy brother,

Thy lover of aforetime crying to thee,

And thou hearest me not.

I have whispered thee in thy solitudes

Of our loves in Phrygia,

The far ecstasy of burning noons

When the fragile pipes

Ceased in the cypress shade,

And the brown fingers of the shepherd

Moved over slim shoulders;

And only the cicada sang.

I have told thee of the hills

And the lisp of reeds

And the sun upon thy breasts,

And thou hearest me not,

Πότνια, πότνια,

Thou hearest me not.

RICHARD ALDINGTON

AU VIEUX JARDIN

I have sat here happy in the gardens,

Watching the still pool and the reeds

And the dark clouds

Which the wind of the upper air

Tore like the green leafy boughs

Of the divers-hued trees of late summer;

But though I greatly delight

In these and the water lilies,

That which sets me nighest to weeping

Is the rose and white colour of the smooth flag-stones,

And the pale yellow grasses

Among them.

RICHARD ALDINGTON

LESBIA

Use no more speech now;

Let the silence spread gold hair above us

Fold on delicate fold;

You had the ivory of my life to carve.

Use no more speech.

.   .   .   .

And Picus of Mirandola is dead;

And all the gods they dreamed and fabled of,

Hermes, and Thoth, and Christ, are rotten now,

Rotten and dank.

.   .   .   .

And through it all I see your pale Greek face;

Tenderness makes me as eager as a little child

To love you

You morsel left half cold on Caesar’s plate.

RICHARD ALDINGTON

BEAUTY THOU HAST HURT ME OVERMUCH

The light is a wound to me.

The soft notes

Feed upon the wound.

Where wert thou born

O thou woe

That consumest my life?

Whither comest thou?

Toothed wind of the seas,

No man knows thy beginning.

As a bird with strong claws

Thou woundest me,

O beautiful sorrow.

RICHARD ALDINGTON

ARGYRIA

O you,

O you most fair,

Swayer of reeds, whisperer

Among the flowering rushes,

You have hidden your hands

Beneath the poplar leaves,

You have given them to the white waters.

Swallow-fleet,

Sea-child cold from waves,

Slight reed that sang so blithely in the wind,

White cloud the white sun kissed into the air;

Pan mourns for you.

White limbs, white song,

Pan mourns for you.

RICHARD ALDINGTON

IN THE VIA SESTINA

O daughter of Isis,

Thou standest beside the wet highway

Of this decayed Rome,

A manifest harlot.

Straight and slim art thou

As a marble phallus;

Thy face is the face of Isis

Carven

As she is carven in basalt.

And my heart stops with awe

At the presence of the gods,

There beside thee on the stall of images

Is the head of Osiris

Thy lord.

RICHARD ALDINGTON

THE RIVER

I

I drifted along the river

Until I moored my boat

By these crossed trunks.

Here the mist moves

Over fragile leaves and rushes,

Colourless waters and brown fading hills.

She has come from beneath the trees,

Moving within the mist,

A floating leaf.

II

O blue flower of the evening,

You have touched my face

With your leaves of silver.

Love me for I must depart.

RICHARD ALDINGTON

BROMIOS

The withered bonds are broken.

The waxed reeds and the double pipe

Clamour about me;

The hot wind swirls

Through the red pine trunks.

Io! the fauns and the satyrs.

The touch of their shagged curled fur

And blunt horns!

They have wine in heavy craters

Painted black and red;

Wine to splash on her white body.

Io!

She shrinks from the cold shower—

Afraid, afraid!

Let the Maenads break through the myrtles

And the boughs of the rohododaphnai.

Let them tear the quick deers’ flesh.

Ah, the cruel, exquisite fingers!

Io!

I have brought you the brown clusters,

The ivy-boughs and pine-cones.

Your breasts are cold sea-ripples,

But they smell of the warm grasses.

Throw wide the chiton and the peplum,

Maidens of the Dew.

Beautiful are your bodies, O Maenads,

Beautiful the sudden folds,

The vanishing curves of the white linen

About you.

Io!

Hear the rich laughter of the forest,

The cymbals,

The trampling of the panisks and the centaurs.

RICHARD ALDINGTON.

TO ATTHIS

(After the Manuscript of Sappho now in Berlin)

Atthis, far from me and dear Mnasidika,

Dwells in Sardis;

Many times she was near us

So that we lived life well

Like the far-famed goddess

Whom above all things music delighted.

And now she is first among the Lydian women

As the mighty sun, the rose-fingered moon,

Beside the great stars.

And the light fades from the bitter sea

And in like manner from the rich-blossoming earth;

And the dew is shed upon the flowers,

Rose and soft meadow-sweet

And many-coloured melilote.

Many things told are remembered of sterile Atthis.

I yearn to behold thy delicate soul

To satiate my desire.  .  .  .

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

RICHARD ALDINGTON

SITALKAS

Thou art come at length

More beautiful

Than any cool god

In a chamber under

Lycia’s far coast,

Than any high god

Who touches us not

Here in the seeded grass.

Aye, than Argestes

Scattering the broken leaves.

H. D.

HERMES OF THE WAYS

I

The hard sand breaks,

And the grains of it

Are clear as wine.

Far off over the leagues of it,

The wind,

Playing on the wide shore,

Piles little ridges,

And the great waves

Break over it.

But more than the many-foamed ways

Of the sea,

I know him

Of the triple path-ways,

Hermes,

Who awaiteth.

Dubious,

Facing three ways,

Welcoming wayfarers,

He whom the sea-orchard

Shelters from the west,

From the east

Weathers sea-wind;

Fronts the great dunes.

Wind rushes

Over the dunes,

And the coarse, salt-crusted grass

Answers.

Heu,

It whips round my ankles!

II

Small is

This white stream,

Flowing below ground

From the poplar-shaded hill,

But the water is sweet.

Apples on the small trees

Are hard,

Too small,

Too late ripened

By a desperate sun

That struggles through sea-mist.

The boughs of the trees

Are twisted

By many bafflings;

Twisted are

The small-leafed boughs.

But the shadow of them

Is not the shadow of the mast head

Nor of the torn sails.

Hermes, Hermes,

The great sea foamed,

Gnashed its teeth about me;

But you have waited,

Where sea-grass tangles with

Shore-grass.

H. D.

PRIAPUS

Keeper-of-Orchards

I saw the first pear

As it fell.

The honey-seeking, golden-banded,

The yellow swarm

Was not more fleet than I,

(Spare us from loveliness!)

And I fell prostrate,

Crying,

Thou hast flayed us with thy blossoms;

Spare us the beauty

Of fruit-trees!

The honey-seeking

Paused not,

The air thundered their song,

And I alone was prostrate.

O rough-hewn

God of the orchard,

I bring thee an offering;

Do thou, alone unbeautiful

(Son of the god),

Spare us from loveliness.

The fallen hazel-nuts,

Stripped late of their green sheaths,

The grapes, red-purple,

Their berries

Dripping with wine,

Pomegranates already broken,

And shrunken fig,

And quinces untouched,

I bring thee as offering.

H. D.

ACON

(After Joannes Baptista Amaltheus)

I

Bear me to Dictaeus,

And to the steep slopes;

To the river Erymanthus.

I choose spray of dittany,

Cyperum frail of flower,

Buds of myrrh,

All-healing herbs,

Close pressed in calathes.

For she lies panting,

Drawing sharp breath,

Broken with harsh sobs,

She, Hyella,

Whom no god pitieth.

II

Dryads,

Haunting the groves,

Nereids,

Who dwell in wet caves,

For all the whitish leaves of olive-branch,

And early roses,

And ivy wreathes, woven gold berries,

Which she once brought to your altars,

Bear now ripe fruits from Arcadia,

And Assyrian wine

To shatter her fever.

The light of her face falls from its flower,

As a hyacinth,

Hidden in a far valley,

Perishes upon burnt grass.

Pales,

Bring gifts,

Bring your Phoenician stuffs,

And do you, fleet-footed nymphs,

Bring offerings,

Illyrian iris,

And a branch of shrub,

And frail-headed poppies.

H. D.

HERMONAX

Gods of the sea;

Ino,

Leaving warm meads

For the green, grey-green fastnesses

Of the great deeps;

And Palemon,

Bright striker of sea-shaft,

Hear me.

Let all whom the sea loveth,

Come to its altar front,

And I

Who can offer no other sacrifice to thee

Bring this.

Broken by great waves,

The wavelets flung it here,

This sea-gliding creature,

This strange creature like a weed,

Covered with salt foam,

Torn from the hillocks

Of rock.

I, Hermonax,

Caster of nets,

Risking chance,

Plying the sea craft,

Came on it.

Thus to sea god

Cometh gift of sea wrack;

I, Hermonax, offer it

To thee, Ino,

And to Palemon.

H. D.

EPIGRAM

(After the Greek)

The golden one is gone from the banquets;

She, beloved of Atimetus,

The swallow, the bright Homonoea:

Gone the dear chatterer.

H. D.

I

London, my beautiful,

it is not the sunset

nor the pale green sky

shimmering through the curtain

of the silver birch,

nor the quietness;

it is not the hopping

of birds

upon the lawn,

nor the darkness

stealing over all things

that moves me.

But as the moon creeps slowly

over the tree-tops

among the stars,

I think of her

and the glow her passing

sheds on men.

London, my beautiful,

I will climb

into the branches

to the moonlit tree-tops,

that my blood may be cooled

by the wind.

F. S. FLINT

II

I know this room,

and there are corridors:

the pictures, I have seen before;

the statues and those gems in cases

I have wandered by before,—

stood there silent and lonely

in a dream of years ago.

I know the dark of night is all around me;

my eyes are closed, and I am half asleep.

My wife breathes gently at my side.

But once again this old dream is within me,

and I am on the threshold waiting,

wondering, pleased, and fearful.

Where do those doors lead,

what rooms lie beyond them?

I venture. . . .

But my baby moves and tosses

from side to side,

and her need calls me to her.

Now I stand awake, unseeing,

in the dark,

and I move towards her cot. . . .

I shall not reach her . . . There is no direction. . . .

I shall walk on. . . .

F. S. FLINT

III

Immortal? . . . No,

they cannot be, these people,

nor I.

Tired faces,

eyes that have never seen the world,

bodies that have never lived in air,

lips that have never minted speech,

they are the clipped and garbled,

blocking the highway.

They swarm and eddy

between the banks of glowing shops

towards the red meat,

the potherbs,

the cheapjacks,

or surge in

before the swift rush

of the clanging trams,—

pitiful, ugly, mean,

encumbering.

Immortal? . . .

In a wood,

watching the shadow of a bird

leap from frond to frond of bracken,

I am immortal.

But these?

F. S. FLINT

IV

The grass is beneath my head;

and I gaze

at the thronging stars

in the night.

They fall . . . they fall. . . .

I am overwhelmed,

and afraid.

Each leaf of the aspen

is caressed by the wind,

and each is crying.

And the perfume

of invisible roses

deepens the anguish.

Let a strong mesh of roots

feed the crimson of roses

upon my heart;

and then fold over the hollow

where all the pain was.

F. S. FLINT

V

Under the lily shadow

and the gold

and the blue and mauve

that the whin and the lilac

pour down on the water,

the fishes quiver.

Over the green cold leaves

and the rippled silver

and the tarnished copper

of its neck and beak,

toward the deep black water

beneath the arches,

the swan floats slowly.

Into the dark of the arch the swan floats

and into the black depth of my sorrow

it bears a white rose of flame.

F. S. FLINT

NOCTURNES

I

Thy feet,

That are like little, silver birds,

Thou hast set upon pleasant ways;

Therefore I will follow thee,

Thou Dove of the Golden Eyes,

Upon any path will I follow thee,

For the light of thy beauty

Shines before me like a torch.

II

Thy feet are white

Upon the foam of the sea;

Hold me fast, thou bright Swan,

Lest I stumble,

And into deep waters.

III

Long have I been

But the Singer beneath thy Casement,

And now I am weary.

I am sick with longing,

O my Belovéd;

Therefore bear me with thee

Swiftly

Upon our road.

IV

With the net of thy hair

Thou hast fished in the sea,

And a strange fish

Hast thou caught in thy net;

For thy hair,

Belovéd,

Holdeth my heart

Within its web of gold.

V

I am weary with love, and thy lips

Are night-born poppies.

Give me therefore thy lips

That I may know sleep.

VI

I am weary with longing,

I am faint with love;

For upon my head has the moonlight

Fallen

As a sword.

SKIPWITH CANNÉLL

IN A GARDEN

Gushing from the mouths of stone men

To spread at ease under the sky

In granite-lipped basins,

Where iris dabble their feet

And rustle to a passing wind,

The water fills the garden with its rushing,

In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns.

Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone,

Where trickle and plash the fountains,

Marble fountains, yellowed with much water.

Splashing down moss-tarnished steps

It falls, the water;

And the air is throbbing with it;

With its gurgling and running;

With its leaping, and deep, cool murmur.

And I wished for night and you.

I wanted to see you in the swimming-pool,

White and shining in the silver-flecked water.

While the moon rode over the garden,

High in the arch of night,

And the scent of the lilacs was heavy with stillness.

Night and the water, and you in your whiteness, bathing!

AMY LOWELL

POSTLUDE

Now that I have cooled to you

Let there be gold of tarnished masonry,

Temples soothed by the sun to ruin

That sleep utterly.

Give me hand for the dances,

Ripples at Philæ, in and out,

And lips, my Lesbian,

Wall flowers that once were flame.

Your hair is my Carthage

And my arms the bow

And our words arrows

To shoot the stars,

Who from that misty sea

Swarm to destroy us.

But you’re there beside me

Oh, how shall I defy you

Who wound me in the night

With breasts shining

Like Venus and like Mars?

The night that is shouting Jason

When the loud eaves rattle

As with waves above me

Blue at the prow of my desire!

O prayers in the dark!

O incense to Poseidon!

Calm in Atlantis.

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

I HEAR AN ARMY

I hear an army charging upon the land,

And the thunder of horses plunging; foam about their knees:

Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,

Disdaining the rains, with fluttering whips, the Charioteers.

They cry into the night their battle name:

I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.

They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,

Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long grey hair:

They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.

My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?

My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?

JAMES JOYCE

ΔΏΡΙΑ

Be in me as the eternal moods

of the bleak wind, and not

As transient things are—

gaiety of flowers.

Have me in the strong loneliness

of sunless cliffs

And of grey waters.

Let the gods speak softly of us

In days hereafter,

The shadowy flowers of Orcus

Remember Thee.

EZRA POUND

THE RETURN

See, they return; ah, see the tentative

Movements, and the slow feet,

The trouble in the pace and the uncertain

Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one,

With fear, as half-awakened;

As if the snow should hesitate

And murmur in the wind

and half turn back;

These were the “Wing’d-with-Awe,”

Inviolable.

Gods of the winged shoe!

With them the silver hounds

sniffing the trace of air!

Haie! Haie!

These were the swift to harry;

These the keen-scented;

These were the souls of blood.

Slow on the leash,

pallid the leash-men!

EZRA POUND

AFTER CH’U YUAN

I will get me to the wood

Where the gods walk garlanded in wisteria,

By the silver-blue flood move others with ivory cars.

There come forth many maidens

to gather grapes for the leopards, my friend.

For there are leopards drawing the cars.

I will walk in the glade,

I will come out of the new thicket

and accost the procession of maidens.

EZRA POUND

LIU CH’E

The rustling of the silk is discontinued,

Dust drifts over the courtyard,

There is no sound of footfall, and the leaves

Scurry into heaps and lie still,

And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath them:

A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.

EZRA POUND.

FAN-PIECE FOR HER IMPERIAL LORD

O fan of white silk,

clear as frost on the grass-blade,

You also are laid aside.

EZRA POUND

TS’AI CHI’H

The petals fall in the fountain,

the orange coloured rose-leaves,

Their ochre clings to the stone.

EZRA POUND.

IN THE LITTLE OLD MARKET-PLACE

(To the Memory of A. V.)

It rains, it rains,

From gutters and drains

And gargoyles and gables:

It drips from the tables

That tell us the tolls upon grains,

Oxen, asses, sheep, turkeys and fowls

Set into the rain-soaked wall

Of the old Town Hall.

The mountains being so tall

And forcing the town on the river,

The market’s so small

That, with the wet cobbles, dark arches and all,

The owls

(For in dark rainy weather the owls fly out

Well before four), so the owls

In the gloom

Have too little room

And brush by the saint on the fountain

In veering about.

The poor saint on the fountain!

Supported by plaques of the giver

To whom we’re beholden;

His name was de Sales

And his wife’s name von Mangel.

(Now is he a saint or archangel?)

He stands on a dragon

On a ball, on a column

Gazing up at the vines on the mountain:

And his falchion is golden

And his wings are all golden.

He bears golden scales

And in spite of the coils of his dragon, without hint of alarm or invective

Looks up at the mists on the mountain.

(Now what saint or archangel

Stands winged on a dragon,

Bearing golden scales and a broad bladed sword all golden?

Alas, my knowledge

Of all the saints of the college,

Of all these glimmering, olden

Sacred and misty stories

Of angels and saints and old glories . . .

Is sadly defective.)

The poor saint on the fountain . . .

On top of his column

Gazes up sad and solemn.

But is it towards the top of the mountain

Where the spindrifty haze is

That he gazes?

Or is it into the casement

Where the girl sits sewing?

There’s no knowing.

Hear it rain!

And from eight leaden pipes in the ball he stands on

That has eight leaden and copper bands on,

There gurgle and drain

Eight driblets of water down into the basin.

And he stands on his dragon

And the girl sits sewing

High, very high in her casement

And before her are many geraniums in a parket

All growing and blowing

In box upon box

From the gables right down to the basement

With frescoes and carvings and paint . . .

The poor saint!

It rains and it rains,

In the market there isn’t an ox,

And in all the emplacement

For waggons there isn’t a waggon,

Not a stall for a grape or a raisin,

Not a soul in the market

Save the saint on his dragon

With the rain dribbling down in the basin,

And the maiden that sews in the casement.

They are still and alone,

Mutterseelens alone,

And the rain dribbles down from his heels and his crown,

From wet stone to wet stone.

It’s grey as at dawn,

And the owls, grey and fawn,

Call from the little town hall

With its arch in the wall,

Where the fire-hooks are stored.

From behind the flowers of her casement

That’s all gay with the carvings and paint,

The maiden gives a great yawn,

But the poor saint—

No doubt he’s as bored!

Stands still on his column

Uplifting his sword

With never the ease of a yawn

From wet dawn to wet dawn . . .

FORD MADOX HUEFFER

SCENTED LEAVES FROM A CHINESE JAR

THE BITTER PURPLE WILLOWS

Meditating on the glory of illustrious lineage I lifted up my eyes and beheld the bitter purple willows growing round the tombs of the exalted Mings.

THE GOLD FISH

Like a breath from hoarded musk,

Like the golden fins that move

Where the tank’s green shadows part—

Living flames out of the dusk—

Are the lightning throbs of love

In the passionate lover’s heart.

THE INTOXICATED POET

A poet, having taken the bridle off his tongue, spoke thus: “More fragrant than the heliotrope, which blooms all the year round, better than vermilion letters on tablets of sendal, are thy kisses, thou shy one!”

THE JONQUILS

I have heard that a certain princess, when she found that she had been married by a demon, wove a wreath of jonquils and sent it to the lover of former days.

THE MERMAID

The sailor boy who leant over the side of the Junk of Many Pearls, and combed the green tresses of the sea with his ivory fingers, believing that he had heard the voice of a mermaid, cast his body down between the waves.

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

The emperors of fourteen dynasties, clad in robes of yellow silk embroidered with the Dragon, wearing gold diadems set with pearls and rubies, and seated on thrones of incomparable ivory, have ruled over the Middle Kingdom for four thousand years.

THE MILKY WAY

My mother taught me that every night a procession of junks carrying lanterns moves silently across the sky, and the water sprinkled from their paddles falls to the earth in the form of dew. I no longer believe that the stars are junks carrying lanterns, no longer that the dew is shaken from their oars.

THE SEA-SHELL

To the passionate lover, whose sighs come back to him on every breeze, all the world is like a murmuring sea-shell.

THE SWALLOW TOWER

Amid a landscape flickering with poplars, and netted by a silver stream, the Swallow Tower stands in the haunts of the sun. The winds out of the four quarters of heaven come to sigh around it, the clouds forsake the zenith to bathe it with continuous kisses. Against its sun-worn walls a sea of orchards breaks in white foam; and from the battlements the birds that flit below are seen like fishes in a green moat. The windows of the Tower stand open day and night; the winged Guests come when they please, and hold communication with the unknown Keeper of the Tower.

ALLEN UPWARD

THE ROSE

I remember a day when I stood on the sea shore at Nice, holding a scarlet rose in my hands.

The calm sea, caressed by the sun, was brightly garmented in blue, veiled in gold, and violet, verging on silver.

Gently the waves lapped the shore, and scattering into pearls, emeralds and opals, hastened towards my feet with a monotonous, rhythmical sound, like the prolonged note of a single harp-string.

High in the clear, blue-golden sky hung the great, burning disc of the sun.

White seagulls hovered above the waves, now barely touching them with their snow-white breasts, now rising anew into the heights, like butterflies over the green meadows . . .

Far in the east, a ship, trailing its smoke, glided slowly from sight as though it had foundered in the waste.

I threw the rose into the sea, and watched it, caught in the wave, receding, red on the snow-white foam, paler on the emerald wave.

And the sea continued to return it to me, again and again, at last no longer a flower, but strewn petals on restless water.

So with the heart, and with all proud things. In the end nothing remains but a handful of petals of what was once a proud flower . . .

JOHN COURNOS after K. TETMAIER

DOCUMENTS

TO HULME (T. E.) AND FITZGERALD

Is there for feckless poverty

That grins at ye for a’ that!

A hired slave to none am I,

But under-fed for a’ that;

For a’ that and a’ that,

The toils I shun and a’ that,

My name but mocks the guinea stamp,

And Pound’s dead broke for a’ that.

Although my linen still is clean,

My socks fine silk and a’ that,

Although I dine and drink good wine—

Say, twice a week, and a’ that;

For a’ that and a’ that,

My tinsel shows and a’ that,

These breeks ’ll no last many weeks

’Gainst wear and tear and a’ that.

Ye see this birkie ca’ed a bard,

Wi’ cryptic eyes and a’ that,

Aesthetic phrases by the yard;

It’s but E. P. for a’ that,

For a’ that and a’ that,

My verses, books and a’ that,

The man of independent means

He looks and laughs at a’ that.

One man will make a novelette

And sell the same and a’ that.

For verse nae man can siller get,

Nae editor maun fa’ that.

For a’ that and a’ that,

Their royalties and a’ that,

Wib time to loaf and will to write

I’ll stick to rhyme for a’ that.

And ye may prise and gang your ways

Wi’ pity, sneers and a’ that,

I know my trade and God has made

Some men to rhyme and a’ that,

For a’ that and a’ that,

I maun gang on for a’ that

Wi’ verse to verse until the hearse

Carts off me wame and a’ that.

WRITTEN FOR THE CENACLE OF 1909 VIDE INTRODUCTION TO “THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T. E. HULME,” PUBLISHED AT THE END OF “RIPOSTES.”

VATES, THE SOCIAL REFORMER

What shall be said of him, this cock-o’-hoop?

(I’m just a trifle bored, dear God of mine,

Dear unknown God, dear chicken-pox of Heaven,

I’m bored I say), But still—my social friend—

(One has to be familiar in one’s discourse)

While he was puffing out his jets of wit

Over his swollen-bellied pipe, one thinks,

One thinks, you know, of quite a lot of things.

(Dear unknown God, dear, queer-faced God,

Queer, queer, queer, queer-faced God,

You blanky God, be quiet for half minute,

And when I’ve shut up Rates, and sat on Naboth,

I’ll tell you half a dozen things or so.)

There goes a flock of starlings—

Now half a dozen years ago,

(Shut up, you blighted God, and let me speak)

I should have hove my sporting air-gun up

And blazed away—and now I let ’em go—

It’s odd how one changes;

Yes, that’s High Germany.

But still, when he was smiling like a Chinese queen,

Looking as queer (I do assure you, God)

As any Chinese queen I ever saw;

And tiddle-whiddle-whiddling about prose,

Trying to quiz a mutton-headed poetaster,

And choking all the time with politics—

Why then I say, I contemplated him

And marveled (God! I marveled,

Write it in prose, dear God. Yes, in red ink.)

And marveled, as I said,

At the stupendous quantity of mind

And the amazing quality thereof.

Dear God of mine,

It’s really most amazing, doncherknow,

But really, God, I can’t get off the mark;

Look here, you queer-faced God,

This fellow makes me sick with all his talk,

His ha’penny gibes at Celtic bards

And followers of Dante—honest folk!—

Because, dear God, the rotten beggar goes

And makes a Chinese blue-stocking

From half-digested dreams of Munich-air.

And then—God, why should I write it down?—

But Rates and Naboth

Aren’t half such silly fools as he is (God)

For they are frankly asinine,

While he pretends to sanity,

Modernity, (dear God, dear God).

It’s bad enough, dear God of mine,

That you have set me down in London town,

Endowed me with a tattered velvet coat,

Soft collar and black hat and Greek ambitions;

You might have left me there.

But now you send

This “vates” here, this sage social reformer

(Yes, God, you rotten Roman Catholic)

To put his hypothetical conceptions

Of what a poor young poetaster would think

Into his own damned shape, and then to attack it

To his own great contemplative satisfaction.

What have I done, O God,

That so much bitterness should flop on me?

Social Reformer! That’s the beggar’s name.

He’d have me write bad novels like himself.

Yes, God, I know it’s after closing time;

And yes, I know I’ve smoked his cigarettes;

But watch that sparrow on the fountain in the rain.

How half a dozen years ago,

(Shut up, you blighted God, and let me speak)

I should have hove my sporting air-gun up

And blazed away—and now I let him go—

It’s odd how one changes;

Yes, that’s High Germany.

R. A.

FRAGMENTS ADDRESSED BY CLEARCHUS H. TO ALDI

Πωετριε

Πρικε φιφτεεν κενξ

π. 43

Ἰ ἁυε σατ ἑρε ἁρριε ἰν μι ἀρμχαιρ

(πύτνηβυς, πύτνηβυς) (1)

ὐατχινγ θε στιλλ Ηουνδ ἀνδ θε κιδ

ὐιθ θε δαρκ ἁιρ

ὑιχ θε ὐινδ ὀφ μι ὐπραισεδ ὐοικε

τορε λικε ἀ γρεεν ματτεδ μεσς

(Ὀ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι) (2)

ὀφ ὐετ κοβυεβς ἀνδ σεαυεεδ ἀτ τυιλιγτ,

βυτ τὁυγ Ἰ γρεατλιε δελιγτεδ

(ἠράμαν μὲν ἐγὼ σέθεν, Ἀλδί, πάλαι πότα) (3)

ἰν θησε ἀνδ θε Ἐζρα ὑισκέρς

τἁτ ὑιχ σετς με νιρεστ το ὐεεπινγ

(ὁ δὲ Κλέαρχος εἶπε) (4)

ἰς θε κλασσικαλ ῥυθμ ὀφ θε ραρε σπεεχες,

Ὠ θε ὐνσπωκεν σπεεχες

Ἑλλενικ.

NOTES. (1) A vehicle conducting passengers from Athens,

the capital of Greece, to the temple of the winds,

which stands in a respectable suburb.

(2) Rendered by Butler, “O God! O Montreal!”

(3) Sappho!!!!!!

(4) Xenophon’s Anabasis.

F. M. H.

Pôetrie

Prike phiphteen kenx

p. 43

I haue sat here harrie in mi armchair

(pυtnêbus, pυtnêbus) (1)

uatching the still Êound and the kid

uith the dark hair

huich the uind oph mi upraised uoike

tore like a green matted mess

(Ô andres Athênaioi) (2)

oph uet kobuebs and seaueed at tuiligt,

but thoug I greatlie deligted

(êraman men egô sethen, Aldi, palai pota) (3)

in thêse and the Ezra huiskers

that huich sets me nirest to ueeping

(ho de Klearchos eipe) (4)

is the klassikal rhythm oph the rare speeches,

Ô the unspôken speeches

Hellenik.

Poetry

Price fifteen cents

p. 43

I have sat here Harry in my armchair

(Putney-bus, Putney-bus) (1)

watching the still hound and the kid

with the dark hair

which the wind of my upraised voice

tore like a green matted mess

(Ô andres Athênaioi) (2)

of wet cobwebs and seaweed at twilight,

but though I greatly delighted

(êraman men egô sethen, Aldi, palai pota) (3)

in these and the Ezra whiskers

that which sets me nearest to weeping

(ho de Klearchos eipe) (4)

is the classical rhythm of the rare speeches,

O the unspoken speeches

Hellenic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

F. S. FLINT—“The Net of the Stars.” Published by Elkin Mathews, 4 Cork St., London, W.

EZRA POUND—Collected Poems (Personae, Exultations, Canzoni, Ripostes). Published by Elkin Mathews.

TRANSLATIONS:

“The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti.” Published by Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.

The Canzoni of Arnaut Daniel. R. F. Seymour & Co., Fine Arts Bldg., Chicago.

PROSE:

“The Spirit of Romance.” A study of mediaeval poetry. Dent & Sons. London.

FORD MADOX HUEFFER—“Collected Poems.” Published by Max Goschen, 20 Gt. Russel St., London. Forty volumes of prose with various publishers.

ALLEN UPWARD—Author of “The New Word,” “The Divine Mystery,” etc., etc.

The “Scented Leaves” appears in “Poetry” for September 1913.

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS—“The Tempers.” Published by Elkin Mathews.

AMY LOWELL—“A Dome of Many Coloured Glass.” Published by Houghton, Mifflin, Boston.

Transcriber's Notes

On page 37, "popies" was replaced by "poppies".

The humorous poem written with Greek characters on page 62 has also been rendered in their Latin equivalents for the benefit of those who cannot pronounce the Greek and also in Latin look-alikes. It appears that, in the first line, the rho's should have been pi's, making the 5th word ἁππιε or happie; it was left as printed. Or, this might have been addressed to the editor of "Poetry" whose name was Harriet Monroe.

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without comment.

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Des Imagistes, by Ezra Pound

DES IMAGISTES

CONTENTS

CHORICOS

TO A GREEK MARBLE

AU VIEUX JARDIN

LESBIA

BEAUTY THOU HAST HURT ME OVERMUCH

ARGYRIA

IN THE VIA SESTINA

THE RIVER

BROMIOS

TO ATTHIS (After the Manuscript of Sappho now in Berlin)

SITALKAS

HERMES OF THE WAYS

PRIAPUS Keeper-of-Orchards

ACON (After Joannes Baptista Amaltheus)

HERMONAX

EPIGRAM (After the Greek)

I

II

III

IV

V

NOCTURNES

IN A GARDEN

POSTLUDE

I HEAR AN ARMY

ΔΏΡΙΑ

THE RETURN

AFTER CH’U YUAN

LIU CH’E

FAN-PIECE FOR HER IMPERIAL LORD

TS’AI CHI’H

IN THE LITTLE OLD MARKET-PLACE (To the Memory of A. V.)

SCENTED LEAVES FROM A CHINESE JAR

THE BITTER PURPLE WILLOWS

THE GOLD FISH

THE INTOXICATED POET

THE JONQUILS

THE MERMAID

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

THE MILKY WAY

THE SEA-SHELL

THE SWALLOW TOWER

THE ROSE

DOCUMENTS

TO HULME (T. E.) AND FITZGERALD

VATES, THE SOCIAL REFORMER

FRAGMENTS ADDRESSED BY CLEARCHUS H. TO ALDI

ΠωετριεΠρικε φιφτεεν κενξ π. 43

PôetriePrike phiphteen kenx p. 43

PoetryPrice fifteen cents p. 43

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Transcriber's Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE