Today is Ezra Pound’s birthday and I realize I don’t know much about him other than…
He did some edit work for TS Eliot…
He boxed with Hemingway…
He dug Japan…
He was a Nazi…or was he a fascist?…or both?
And…that’s about it.
So, to celebrate this day of the puzzlingly profound and persistently pedantic poet’s birth, I am going to read what Wikipedia has to say about him and I will meditate on and try to come to an understanding of one of his poems (I say try to come to an understanding because the reason I don’t know much about him to begin with is because his poetry is very difficult for me. Most good poets are, in fact, difficult for me, but he is like the template for difficult poets. I guess we could say, in diabolic honor of his nazi/fascist stain, he is the Dictator of Difficult).
Anyway…maybe you’ll join me in poetic meditation?
And since I’m an Old Salt of a Sailor, what better poem of his to meditate on than one of the sea…
The Seafarer
Pound, Ezra (1885 – 1972)
(From the early Anglo-Saxon text)
1…..May I for my own self song’s truth reckon,
2…..Journey’s jargon, how I in harsh days
3…..Hardship endured oft.
4…..Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
5…..Known on my keel many a care’s hold,
6…..And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
7…..Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship’s head
8…..While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
9…..My feet were by frost benumbed.
10…Chill its chains are; chafing sighs
11…Hew my heart round and hunger begot
12…Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
13…That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
14…List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
15…Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
16…Deprived of my kinsmen;
17….Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,
18…There I heard naught save the harsh sea
19…And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
20…Did for my games the gannet’s clamour,
21…Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,
22…The mews’ singing all my mead-drink.
23…Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern
24…In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed
25…With spray on his pinion.
26………….Not any protector
27…May make merry man faring needy.
28…This he little believes, who aye in winsome life
29…Abides ‘mid burghers some heavy business,
30…Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft
31…Must bide above brine.
32…Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,
33…Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then
34…Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now
35…The heart’s thought that I on high streams
36…The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
37…Moaneth alway my mind’s lust
38…That I fare forth, that I afar hence
39…Seek out a foreign fastness.
40…For this there’s no mood-lofty man over earth’s midst,
41…Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;
42…Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful
43…But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
44…Whatever his lord will.
45…He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
46…Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world’s delight
47…Nor any whit else save the wave’s slash,
48…Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.
49…Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,
50…Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
51…All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
52…The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
53…On flood-ways to be far departing.
54…Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
55…He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
56…The bitter heart’s blood. Burgher knows not –
57…He the prosperous man — what some perform
58…Where wandering them widest draweth.
59…So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,
60…My mood ‘mid the mere-flood,
61…Over the whale’s acre, would wander wide.
62…On earth’s shelter cometh oft to me,
63…Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
64…Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,
65…O’er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow
66…My lord deems to me this dead life
67…On loan and on land, I believe not
68…That any earth-weal eternal standeth
69…Save there be somewhat calamitous
70…That, ere a man’s tide go, turn it to twain.
71…Disease or oldness or sword-hate
72…Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.
73…And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after –
74…Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,
75…That he will work ere he pass onward,
76…Frame on the fair earth ‘gainst foes his malice,
77…Daring ado, …
78…So that all men shall honour him after
79…And his laud beyond them remain ‘mid the English,
80…Aye, for ever, a lasting life’s-blast,
81…Delight mid the doughty.
82……………..Days little durable,
83…And all arrogance of earthen riches,
84…There come now no kings nor Cæsars
85…Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.
86…Howe’er in mirth most magnified,
87…Whoe’er lived in life most lordliest,
88…Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!
89…Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.
90…Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.
91…Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
92…No man at all going the earth’s gait,
93…But age fares against him, his face paleth,
94…Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,
95…Lordly men are to earth o’ergiven,
96…Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,
97…Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,
98…Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,
99…And though he strew the grave with gold,
100..His born brothers, their buried bodies
101..Be an unlikely treasure hoard.
Notes
1] Pound translates only the first 99 lines of the poem. His translation differs in many details from the original.
12] mere-weary: sea-weary.
17] scur: storm.
20] gannet: sea-bird.
22] mews: seagulls.
34] Nathless: nevertheless.
39] fastness: stronghold.
49] bosque: thicket, small wood.
81] doughty: brave.
Original Text:
Ripostes of Ezra Pound (London: Ovid Press, 1912): 25-30.
Publication Start Year:
1911
Publication Notes:
New Age 10.5:107
RPO poem Editors:
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition:
RPO 1998.
Form: four-stress alliterative lines
The poem, notes, and additional matter are courtesy of the University of Toronto. The university retains copyright for all less the poem. Visit its site for more information.
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Filed under: Poetry Tagged: Author Birthdays, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Famous Birthdays, fascist, Japan, Nazi, on this day, poetry, poets, T. S. Eliot, The Seafarer, writing
