Section: «Poems»

Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings: artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.); a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").

Cantico Del Sole

The thought of what America would be likeIf the Classics had a wide circulation Troubles my sleep,The thought of what America,The thought of..

© Ezra Pound

[greek]

Be in me as the eternal moodsof the bleak wind, and notAs transient things are—gaiety of flowers.Have me in the strong lonelinessof sunless cliffsAnd..

© Ezra Pound

Dance Figure

For the Marriage in Cana of GalileeDark-eyed,O woman of my dreams,Ivory sandalled,There is none like thee among the dancers,None with swift feet.I..

© Ezra Pound

The Garden

En robe de parade. SamainLike a skein of loose silk blown against a wallShe walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,And she is dying..

© Ezra Pound

The Seafarer

(From the early Anglo-Saxon text)May I for my own self song's truth reckon,Journey's jargon, how I in harsh daysHardship endured oft.Bitter..

© Ezra Pound

Canto 13

Kung walkedby the dynastic templeand into the cedar grove,and then out by the lower river,And with him Khieu Tchiand Tian the low speakingAnd "we are..

© Ezra Pound

Ballad Of The Goodly Fere

Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' allFor the priests and the gallows tree?Aye lover he was of brawny men,O' ships and the open sea.When they came wi'..

© Ezra Pound

Tame Cat

It rests me to be among beautiful womenWhy should one always lie about such matters?I repeat:It rests me to converse with beautiful womenEven though..

© Ezra Pound

A Song Of The Degrees

IRest me with Chinese colours,For I think the glass is evil.IIThe wind moves above the wheat-With a silver crashing,A thin war of metal.I have known..

© Ezra Pound

Canto 49

For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses:Rain; empty river; a voyage,Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilightUnder the cabin roof..

© Ezra Pound

A Virginal

No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;Slight are..

© Ezra Pound

Ballad For Gloom

For God, our God is a gallant foeThat playeth behind the veil.I have loved my God as a child at heartThat seeketh deep bosoms for rest,I have loved..

© Ezra Pound

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter

After Li PoWhile my hair was still cut straightacross my foreheadI played at the front gate, pullingflowers.You came by on bamboo stilts..

© Ezra Pound

Canto I

And then went down to the ship,Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, andWe set up mast and sail on that swart ship,Bore sheep aboard her, and..

© Ezra Pound

Before Sleep

The lateral vibrations caress me,They leap and caress me,They work pathetically in my favour,They seek my financial good.She of the spear stands..

© Ezra Pound

Alba

As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valleyShe lay beside me in the dawn.

© Ezra Pound

An Immorality

Sing we for love and idleness,Naught else is worth the having.Though I have been in many a land,There is naught else in living.And I would rather..

© Ezra Pound

Ancient Music

Winter is icummen in,Lhude sing Goddamm.Raineth drop and staineth slop,And how the wind doth ramm!Sing: Goddamm.Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,An ague..

© Ezra Pound

In A Station Of The Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;petals on a wet, black bough.

© Ezra Pound

And The Days Are Not Full Enough

And the days are not full enoughAnd the nights are not full enoughAnd life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass

© Ezra Pound

A Pact

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman -I have detested you long enough.I come to you as a grown childWho has had a pig-headed father;I am old enough..

© Ezra Pound

A Girl

The tree has entered my hands,The sap has ascended my arms,The tree has grown in my breast -Downward,The branches grow out of me, like arms.Tree you..

© Ezra Pound

Mystery and Solitude in Topeka

Afternoon darkens into evening. A man falls deeper and deeper into the slow spiral of sleep, into the drift of it, the length of it, through what..

© Mark Strand

Old Man Leaves Party

It was clear when I left the partyThat though I was over eighty I still hadA beautiful body. The moon shone down as it willOn moments of deep..

© Mark Strand

WHERE ARE THE WATERS OF CHILDHOOD?

See where the windows are boarded up,where the gray siding shines in the sun and salt airand the asphalt shingles on the roof have peeled or fallen..

© Mark Strand