ezra pound poetry

8/9/2019 Ezra Pound Poetry

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Pound, Ezra (1920) Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

Hugh SelwynMauberley

BY

E. P.

THE OVID PRESS1920

"VOCAT STUS IN UMBRAM"

_Nemesianus Ec. IV._

H. S. Mauberley

(LIFE AND CONTACTS)

Transcriber's note: Ezra Pound's _Hugh Selwyn Mauberley_contains accents, diphthongs and Greek characters. Facsimileimages of the poems as originally published are freely availableonline from the Internet Archive. Please use these images tocheck for any errors or inadequacies in this electronic text.

_MAUBERLEY_CONTENTSPart I.________

_Ode pour l'lection de son sepulcher_II.III.IV.V._Yeux Glauques__"Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma"_

_Brennbaum__Mr. Nixon_X.XI.XII.

____________

ENVOI1919


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____________

Part II.1920

(Mauberley)

I.II.III. _"The age demanded"_IV.V. _Medallion_

E.P.ODE POUR SELECTION DE SON SEPULCHRE

FOR three years, out of key with his time,He strove to resuscitate the dead art

Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"In the old sense. Wrong from the start--

No hardly, but, seeing he had been bornIn a half savage country, out of date;Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;Capaneus; trout for factitious bait;

_{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTERDELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALLLETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITHTONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALLLETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEKSMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTERPI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEKSMALL LETTER THETA~}', {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALLLETTER SIGMA~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTERNU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALLLETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITHTONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}_Caught in the unstopped ear;Giving the rocks small lee-wayThe chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.

His true Penelope was Flaubert,He fished by obstinate isles;Observed the elegance of Circe's hair

Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials.

Unaffected by "the march of events,"He passed from men's memory in _l'an trentiesmeDe son eage_; the case presentsNo adjunct to the Muses' diadem.

II.


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THE age demanded an imageOf its accelerated grimace,Something for the modern stage,Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;

Not, not certainly, the obscure reveriesOf the inward gaze;Better mendacitiesThan the classics in paraphrase!

The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,Made with no loss of time,A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabasterOr the "sculpture" of rhyme.

III.

THE tea-rose tea-gown, etc.Supplants the mousseline of Cos,

The pianola "replaces"Sappho's barbitos.

Christ follows Dionysus,Phallic and ambrosialMade way for macerations;Caliban casts out Ariel.

All things are a flowing,Sage Heracleitus says;But a tawdry cheapnessShall reign throughout our days.

Even the Christian beautyDefects--after Samothrace;We see _{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEKSMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTERLAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}_Decreed in the market place.

Faun's flesh is not to us,Nor the saint's vision.We have the press for wafer;Franchise for circumcision.

All men, in law, are equals.Free of Peisistratus,

We choose a knave or an eunuchTo rule over us.

O bright Apollo,_{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEKSMALL LETTER NU~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALLLETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEKSMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTAWITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITHTONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL


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LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITHTONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALLLETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTEROMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}_,What god, man, or heroShall I place a tin wreath upon!

IV.

THESE fought, in any case,and some believing, pro domo, in any case . .Some quick to arm,some for adventure,some from fear of weakness,some from fear of censure,some for love of slaughter, in imagination,learning later . . .

some in fear, learning love of slaughter;

Died some "pro patria, non dulce non et decor". .

walked eye-deep in hellbelieving in old men's lies, then unbelievingcame home, home to a lie,home to many deceits,home to old lies and new infamy;

usury age-old and age-thickand liars in public places.

Daring as never before, wastage as never before.Young blood and high blood,Fair cheeks, and fine bodies;

fortitude as never before

frankness as never before,disillusions as never told in the old days,hysterias, trench confessions,laughter out of dead bellies.

V.

THERE died a myriad,And of the best, among them,

For an old bitch gone in the teeth,For a botched civilization,

Charm, smiling at the good mouth,Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,

For two gross of broken statues,For a few thousand battered books.


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YEUX GLAUQUES

GLADSTONE was still respected,When John Ruskin produced"Kings Treasuries"; SwinburneAnd Rossetti still abused.

Foetid Buchanan lifted up his voiceWhen that faun's head of hersBecame a pastime forPainters and adulterers.

The Burne-Jones cartonsHave preserved her eyes;Still, at the Tate, they teachCophetua to rhapsodize;

Thin like brook-water,With a vacant gaze.The English Rubaiyat was still-born

In those days.

The thin, clear gaze, the sameStill darts out faun-like from the half-ruin'd facQuesting and passive ...."Ah, poor Jenny's case"...

Bewildered that a worldShows no surpriseAt her last maquero'sAdulteries.

"SIENA MI FE', DISFECEMI MAREMMA"

AMONG the pickled foetuses and bottled bones,Engaged in perfecting the catalogue,I found the last scion of theSenatorial families of Strasbourg, Monsieur Verog.

For two hours he talked of Gallifet;Of Dowson; of the Rhymers' Club;Told me how Johnson (Lionel) diedBy falling from a high stool in a pub . . .

But showed no trace of alcoholAt the autopsy, privately performed--

Tissue preserved--the pure mindArose toward Newman as the whiskey warmed.

Dowson found harlots cheaper than hotels;Headlam for uplift; Image impartially imbuedWith raptures for Bacchus, Terpsichore and the Church.So spoke the author of "The Dorian Mood",

M. Verog, out of step with the decade,Detached from his contemporaries,


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Neglected by the young,Because of these reveries.

BRENNBAUM.

THE sky-like limpid eyes,The circular infant's face,The stiffness from spats to collarNever relaxing into grace;

The heavy memories of Horeb, Sinai and the forty years,Showed only when the daylight fellLevel across the faceOf Brennbaum "The Impeccable".

MR. NIXON

IN the cream gilded cabin of his steam yacht

Mr. Nixon advised me kindly, to advance with fewerDangers of delay. "Consider

"Carefully the reviewer.

"I was as poor as you are;"When I began I got, of course,"Advance on royalties, fifty at first", said Mr. Nixon,"Follow me, and take a column,"Even if you have to work free.

"Butter reviewers. From fifty to three hundred"I rose in eighteen months;"The hardest nut I had to crack"Was Dr. Dundas.

"I never mentioned a man but with the view"Of selling my own works."The tip's a good one, as for literature"It gives no man a sinecure."

And no one knows, at sight a masterpiece.And give up verse, my boy,There's nothing in it.

* * *

Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me:

Don't kick against the pricks,Accept opinion. The "Nineties" tried your gameAnd died, there's nothing in it.

X.

BENEATH the sagging roofThe stylist has taken shelter,Unpaid, uncelebrated,


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At last from the world's welter

Nature receives him,With a placid and uneducated mistressHe exercises his talentsAnd the soil meets his distress.

The haven from sophistications and contentionsLeaks through its thatch;He offers succulent cooking;The door has a creaking latch.

XI.

"CONSERVATRIX of Milsien"Habits of mind and feeling,Possibly. But in EalingWith the most bank-clerkly of Englishmen?

No, "Milsien" is an exaggeration.No instinct has survived in herOlder than those her grandmotherTold her would fit her station.

XII.

"DAPHNE with her thighs in barkStretches toward me her leafy hands",--Subjectively. In the stuffed-satin drawing-roomI await The Lady Valentine's commands,

Knowing my coat has never beenOf precisely the fashionTo stimulate, in her,A durable passion;

Doubtful, somewhat, of the valueOf well-gowned approbationOf literary effort,But never of The Lady Valentine's vocation:

Poetry, her border of ideas,The edge, uncertain, but a means of blendingWith other strataWhere the lower and higher have ending;

A hook to catch the Lady Jane's attention,A modulation toward the theatre,Also, in the case of revolution,A possible friend and comforter.

* * *

Conduct, on the other hand, the soul"Which the highest cultures have nourished"


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To Fleet St. whereDr. Johnson flourished;

Beside this thoroughfareThe sale of half-hose hasLong since superseded the cultivationOf Pierian roses.

ENVOI (1919)

GO, dumb-born book,Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes;Hadst thou but songAs thou hast subjects known,Then were there cause in thee that should condoneEven my faults that heavy upon me lieAnd build her glories their longevity.

Tell her that sheds

Such treasure in the air,Recking naught else but that her graces giveLife to the moment,I would bid them liveAs roses might, in magic amber laid,Red overwrought with orange and all madeOne substance and one colourBraving time.

Tell her that goesWith song upon her lipsBut sings not out the song, nor knowsThe maker of it, some other mouth,May be as fair as hers,Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers,When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid,Siftings on siftings in oblivion,Till change hath broken downAll things save Beauty alone.

1920

(MAUBERLEY)

I.

TURNED from the "eau-fortePar Jaquemart"To the strait headOf Mcssalina:

"His true PenelopeWas Flaubert",And his toolThe engraver's


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Firmness,Not the full smile,His art, but an artIn profile;

ColourlessPier Francesca,Pisanello lacking the skillTo forge Achaia.

II.

_"Qu'est ce qu'ils savent de l'amour, etgu'est ce qu'ils peuvent comprendre?S'ils ne comprennent pas la posie,s'ils ne sentent pas la musique, qu'est cequ'ils peuvent comprendre de cette pas-sion en comparaison avec laquelle la roseest grossire et le parfum des violettes untonnerre?"_ CAID ALI

FOR three years, diabolus in the scale,He drank ambrosia,All passes, ANANGKE prevails,Came end, at last, to that Arcadia.

He had moved amid her phantasmagoria,Amid her galaxies,NUKTIS AGALMA

Drifted....drifted precipitate,Asking time to be rid of....Of his bewilderment; to designateHis new found orchid....

To be certain....certain...(Amid aerial flowers)..time for arrangements--Drifted onTo the final estrangement;

Unable in the supervening blanknessTo sift TO AGATHON from the chaffUntil he found his seive...Ultimately, his seismograph:

--Given, that is, his urgeTo convey the relation

Of eye-lid and cheek-boneBy verbal manifestation;

To present the seriesOf curious heads in medallion--

He had passed, inconscient, full gaze,The wide-banded irisesAnd botticellian sprays impliedIn their diastasis;


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Which ansthesis, noted a year late,And weighed, revealed his great affect,(Orchid), mandateOf Eros, a retrospect.

. . .

Mouths biting empty air,The still stone dogs,Caught in metamorphosis were,Left him as epilogues.

"THE AGE DEMANDED"

VIDE POEM II.

FOR this agility chance foundHim of all men, unfit

As the red-beaked steeds ofThe Cytheran for a chain-bit.

The glow of porcelainBrought no reforming senseTo his perceptionOf the social inconsequence.

Thus, if her colourCame against his gaze,Tempered as ifIt were through a perfect glaze

He made no immediate applicationOf this to relation of the stateTo the individual, the month was more temperateBecause this beauty had been

......The coral isle, the lion-coloured sandBurst in upon the porcelain revery:Impetuous troublingOf his imagery.

......

Mildness, amid the neo-Neitzschean clatter,His sense of graduations,Quite out of place amid

Resistance to current exacerbations

Invitation, mere invitation to perceptivityGradually led him to the isolationWhich these presents placeUnder a more tolerant, perhaps, examination.

By constant eliminationThe manifest universeYielded an armour


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Against utter consternation,

A Minoan undulation,Seen, we admit, amid ambrosial circumstancesStrengthened him againstThe discouraging doctrine of chances

And his desire for survival,Faint in the most strenuous moods,Became an Olympian _apathein_In the presence of selected perceptions.

A pale gold, in the aforesaid pattern,The unexpected palmsDestroying, certainly, the artist's urge,Left him delighted with the imaginaryAudition of the phantasmal sea-surge,

Incapable of the least utterance or composition,Emendation, conservation of the "better tradition",

Refinement of medium, elimination of superfluities,August attraction or concentration.

Nothing in brief, but maudlin confessionIrresponse to human aggression,Amid the precipitation, down-floatOf insubstantial mannaLifting the faint susurrusOf his subjective hosannah.

Ultimate affronts to human redundancies;

Non-esteem of self-styled "his betters"Leading, as he well knew,To his finalExclusion from the world of letters.

IV.

SCATTERED MoluccasNot knowing, day to day,The first day's end, in the next noon;The placid waterUnbroken by the Simoon;

Thick foliage

Placid beneath warm suns,Tawn fore-shoresWashed in the cobalt of oblivions;

Or through dawn-mistThe grey and roseOf the juridicalFlamingoes;

A consciousness disjunct,


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Being but this overblottedSeriesOf intermittences;

Coracle of Pacific voyages,The unforecasted beach:Then on an oarRead this:

"I wasAnd I no more exist;Here driftedAn hedonist."

MEDALLION

LUINI in porcelain!The grand pianoUtters a profane

Protest with her clear soprano.

The sleek head emergesFrom the gold-yellow frockAs Anadyomene in the openingPages of Reinach.

Honey-red, closing the face-ovalA basket-work of braids which seem as if they wereSpun in King Minos' hallFrom metal, or intractable amber;

The face-oval beneath the glaze,Bright in its suave bounding-line, asBeneath half-watt raysThe eyes turn topaz.

THIS EDITION OF 200 COPIES IS THE THIRD BOOKOF THE OVID PRESS: WAS PRINTED BY JOHN

RODKER: AND COMPLETED APRIL23RD. 1920

OF THIS EDITION:--

15 Copies on Japan Vellum numbered 1-15 & not for sale.20 Signed copies numbered 16-35

165 Unsigned copies numbered 36-200

The initials & colophon by E. Wadsworth.

The OVID PRESS, 43 BELSIZE PARK GARDENS, LONDON N.W.3

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