Thursday, September 25, 2008

Plotinus

As one who would draw through the node of things,
Back sweeping to the vortex of the cone,
Cloistered about with memories,
Alone in chaos, while the waiting silence sings,
Obliviate of cycles wanderings,
I was an atom on creation's throne,
And counted nothing mine unconquered own.
God! Should I be the hand upon the strings?
But I was lonely as a lonely child,
I cried amid the void and heard no cry,
And then, for utter loneliness made I
New thoughts as crescent images of me.
And in them was my image reconciled,
And fear went forth from mine eternity.

-Ezra Pound-

Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Goodly Fere (Simon Zelotes Speaks after the Crusifixion)

"Fere" = Mate, Companion

Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' all
For the priest 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 these go!" quo' our Goodly Fere,
"Or I'll see ye damned," says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
"Why took ye me not when I walked about
Alone in the town?" says he.

Oh we drank his "Hale" in the good red wine
When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere
But a man o' men was he.

I ha' seen him drive a hundred men
Wi' a bundle of cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.

They'll no' get him a' in a book I think
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha' snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
"I'll go to the feast," quo' our Goodly Fere,
"Though I go to the gallows tree."

"Ye ha' seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead," says he,
"Ye shall see one thing to master all:
"Tis how a brave man dies on the tree."

A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us brothers be.
I ha' seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.

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.

-Ezra Pound-

Friday, September 12, 2008

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

A Virginal

No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,
For the surrounding air hath a new lightness;
Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly
And left me soaked as with a gauze of aether;
As with sweet leaves; as with a subtle clearness.
Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness
To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.
No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,
Soft as spring wind that's come from birchen bowers.
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winter's wound with her sleight hand she staunches,
Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:
As white their bark, so white this lady's hours.

-Ezra Pound-

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

And Now for Something Totally Macabre

Whispers of Immortality


Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures underground
Stared backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate:
Expert beyond experience,

He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone. . .

And even Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.

T.S. Eliot

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Yeats, Again

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Spanish or on Russian or
On Roman politics?

There stands a well-traveled man
Who knows what he's about,
And there's a politician, who
Has both read and thought.

Perhaps it is true, what they say
Of war, and war's alarms;
But ah, that I were young again,
And held her in my arms!

-William Butler Yeats-