Chapter I: Hear an Army

Text size

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
(Ὠ 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
(putnêbus, putnêbus) (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.

Comments