Grace Before Song

LORD God of heaven that with mercy dight

Th'alternate prayer wheel of the night and light

Eternal hath to thee, and in whose sight

Our days as rain drops in the sea surge fall,

As bright white drops upon a leaden sea

Grant so my songs to this grey folk may be:

As drops that dream and gleam and falling catch the sun

Evan'scent mirrors every opal one

Of such his splendor as their compass is,

So, bold My Songs, seek ye such death as this.

Ezra Pound

The Needle

COME, or the stellar tide will slip away.

Eastward avoid the hour of its decline,

Now! for the needle trembles in my soul!

Here have we had our vantage, the good hour.

Here we have had our day, your day and mine.

Come now, before this power

That bears us up, shall turn against the pole.

Mock not the flood of stars, the thing's to be.

O Love, come now, this land turns evil slowly.

The waves bore in, soon will they bear away.

The treasure is ours, make we fast land with it.

Move we and take the tide, with its next favour,

Abide

Under some neutral force

Until this course turneth aside.

Ezra Pound

The Garret

COME let us pity those who are better off than we are.

Come, my friend, and remember

that the rich have butlers and no friends,

And we have friends and no butlers.

Come let us pity the married and the unmarried.

Dawn enters with little feet

Like a gilded Pavlova,

And I am near my desire.

Nor has life in it aught better

Than this hour of clear coolness,

The hour of waking together.

Ezra Pound

Further Instructions

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 nobilities;

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.

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 have my sweet,

Though rose-leaves die of grieving,

Than do high deeds in Hungary

To pass all men's believing.

Ezra Pound