



Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org
(Images generously made available by the Internet Archive.)





EXULTATIONS

OF

EZRA POUND



LONDON

ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET

M CM IX



     _I am an eternal spirit and the things I_
   _make are but ephemera, yet I endure:_
     _Yea, and the little earth crumbles beneath_
   _our feet and we endure._



TO CARLOS TRACY CHESTER

"_amicitiae longaevitate_"



     I have to thank the Editors of the _English Review_ and the
     _Evening Standard_ and _St. James's Gazette_ for permission to
     include in this volume certain poems which originally appeared in
     those papers.




CONTENTS



   GUIDO INVITES YOU THUS
   NIGHT LITANY
   SANDALPHON
   SESTINA: ALTAFORTE
   PIERE VIDAL OLD
   BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE
   HYMN III FROM THE LATIN OF FLAMINIUS
   SESTINA FOR YSOLT
   PORTRAIT (FROM "LA MERE INCONNUE")
   FAIR HELENA
   LAUDANTES DECEM
   AUX BELLES DE LONDRES
   FRANCESCA
   GREEK EPIGRAM
   COLUMBUS' EPITAPH
   PLOTINUS
   ON HIS OWN FACE IN A GLASS
   HISTRION
   THE EYES
   DEFIANCE
   SONG
   NEL BIANCHEGGIAR
   NILS LYKKE
   A SONG OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER
   PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING
   ALBA INNOMINATA
   PLANH




EXULTATIONS


   Guido invites you thus[1]


   "Lappo I leave behind and Dante too,
   Lo, I would sail the seas with thee alone!
   Talk me no love talk, no bought-cheap fiddl'ry,
   Mine is the ship and thine the merchandise,
   All the blind earth knows not th' emprise
   Whereto thou calledst and whereto I call.

   Lo, I have seen thee bound about with dreams,
   Lo, I have known thy heart and its desire;
   Life, all of it, my sea, and all men's streams
   Are fused in it as flames of an altar fire!

   Lo, thou hast voyaged not! The ship is mine."


[Footnote 1: The reference is to Dante's sonnet "Guido vorrei...."]



   Night Litany


   O Dieu, purifiez nos coeurs!
           purifiez nos coeurs!

   Yea the lines hast thou laid unto me
                  in pleasant places,
   And the beauty of this thy Venice
                  hast thou shown unto me
   Until is its loveliness become unto me
                  a thing of tears.

   O God, what great kindness
                  have we done in times past
                  and forgotten it,
   That thou givest this wonder unto us,
                  O God of waters?

   O God of the night
                  What great sorrow
   Cometh unto us,
                  That thou thus repayest us
   Before the time of its coming?

   O God of silence,
                  Purifiez nos coeurs,
                  Purifiez nos coeurs,
   For we have seen
   The glory of the shadow of the
       likeness of thine handmaid,
   Yea, the glory of the shadow
       of thy Beauty hath walked

   Upon the shadow of the waters
       In this thy Venice.
                  And before the holiness
   Of the shadow of thy handmaid
       Have I hidden mine eyes,
                  O God of waters.

   O God of silence,
                  Purifiez nos coeurs,
                  Purifiez nos coeurs,
   O God of waters,
                  make clean our hearts within us
   And our lips to show forth thy praise,
                  For I have seen the
   Shadow of this thy Venice
   Floating upon the waters,
                  And thy stars
   Have seen this thing out of their far courses
   Have they seen this thing,
                  O God of waters,
   Even as are thy stars
   Silent unto us in their far-coursing,
   Even so is mine heart
       become silent within me.

                  _Purifiez nos coeurs_
   _O God of the silence,_
                  _Purifiez nos coeurs_
   _O God of waters._



   Sandalphon


     The angel of prayer according to the Talmud stands unmoved among
     the angels of wind and fire, who die as their one song is finished,
     also as he gathers the prayers they turn to flowers in his hands.


   And these about me die,
   Because the pain of the infinite singing
   Slayeth them.
   Ye that have sung of the pain of the earth-horde's
         age-long crusading,
   Ye know somewhat the strain,
       the sad-sweet wonder-pain of such singing.
   And therefore ye know after what fashion
   This singing hath power destroying.

   Yea, these about me, bearing such song in homage
   Unto the Mover of Circles,
   Die for the might of their praising,
   And the autumn of their marcescent wings
   Maketh ever new loam for my forest;
   And these grey ash trees hold within them
   All the secrets of whatso things
   They dreamed before their praises,
   And in this grove my flowers,
   Fruit of prayerful powers,
   Have first their thought of life
                     And then their being.

   Ye marvel that I die not! _forsitan_!
   Thinking me kin with such as may not weep,
   Thinking me part of them that die for praising
   --yea, tho' it be praising,
   past the power of man's mortality to
   dream or name its phases,
   --yea, tho' it chant and paean
   past the might of earth-dwelt
   soul to think on,
   --yea, tho' it be praising
   as these the winged ones die of.

