Further Instructions
by: Ezra Pound
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,
You do next to nothing at all.
You do not even express our inner nobilitys,
You will come to a very bad end.
And I? I have gone half-cracked.
I have talked to you so much that I almost see you about me,
Insolent little beasts! Shameless! Devoid of clothing!
But you, newest song of the lot,
You are not old enough to have done much mischief.
I will get you a green coat out of China
With dragons worked upon it.
I will get you the scarlet silk trousers
From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa Maria Novella;
Lest they say we are lacking in taste,
Or that there is no caste in this family.
The Tree
by: Ezra Pound
I stood still and was a tree amid the wood,
Knowing the truth of things unseen before;
Of Daphne and the laurel bow
And that god-feasting couple old
that grew elm-oak amid the wold.
'Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated, and been brought within
Unto the hearth of their heart's home
That they might do this wonder thing;
Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood
And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before.
From "Personae", 1920
Statement of Being
by: Ezra Pound
I am a grave poetic hen
That lays poetic eggs
And to enhance my temperament
A little quiet begs.
We make the yolk philosophy,
True beauty the albumen.
And then gum on a shell of form
To make the screed sound human.
From "Uncollected Miscellaneous Poems", 1902
A Pact
by: Ezra Pound
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 and one root--
Let there be commerce between us.
From "Poems of Lustra", 1913
Originally posted by Acolyte
This is nice and all, but why is it in the debates forum?
Because today we are celebrating the birth of the new <debates> forum 🙂
By the way, you're not gonna tell me that you don't see any relationship between the poems and the new forum ....... hm ? 😕 ......
Originally posted by AcolyteMaybe ivanhoe wants to begin a debate about poetry? Or Ezra Pound? That guy was one crazy jew-hating facist (read Canto XLV). And yet a hell of a poet. I especially like these ones, though I don't know if I really trust a guy who despises Walt Whitman. 😠Pound probably hated homosexuals too, but I can't think of any of his poetry offhand that would support this claim. Pound was a strange sort of poet, that's for sure.
This is nice and all, but why is it in the debates forum?
And the themes do indeed pertain to present and future topics in the debate forums...
Originally posted by BookwormEzra Pound was not exactly a pussy, one might say, but he sure knew his way with words. During the second world war he dwelled in fascist Italy and if my memory serves me well he had some sort of radio broadcast over there, a kind of disc jockey avant la lettre .....
Maybe ivanhoe wants to begin a debate about poetry? Or Ezra Pound? That guy was one crazy jew-hating facist (read Canto XLV). And yet a hell of a poet. I especially like these ones, though I don't know if I really trust a guy who desp ...[text shortened]... eed pertain to present and future topics in the debate forums...
Bookworm: ".... though I don't know if I really trust a guy who despises Walt Whitman."
He wants a pact with him .... that's nice ... maybe a pact like the von Ribbentropp-Molotov pact ..... 😛
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THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
1794