Selected Poems of Ezra Pound Quotes

“The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation
Troubles my sleep (Cantico del Sole)”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“Let the gods speak softly of us”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“Let us take arms against this sea of stupidities—”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“Why do you look so eagerly and so curiously into people’s faces, / Will you find your lost dead among them?”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“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 game
And died, there's nothing in it.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“The Encounter"

All the while they were talking the new morality
Her eyes explored me.
And when I rose to go
Her fingers were like the tissue
Of a Japanese paper napkin.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“Left him delighted with the imaginary Audition of the phantasmal sea-surge,”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“ALBA from “Langue d’Oc” When the nightingale to his mate Sings day-long and night late My love and I keep state In bower, In flower, ‘Till the watchman on the tower Cry: “Up! Thou rascal, Rise, I see the white Light And the night Flies.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“I have weathered the storm, I have beaten out my exile.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“Come, my songs, let us speak of perfection— / We shall get ourselves rather disliked.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“So much barren regret!
So many hours wasted!
And now I watch, from the window,
the rain, the wandering buses.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems 1908-1969

“I do not like to remember things any more.

I like one little band of winds that blow
In the ash trees here:
For we are quite alone
Here 'mid the ash trees.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems 1908-1969

“The Garrett"

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, Selected Poems 1908-1969

“Darkness reminds us of light.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“I
This government official
Whose wife is several years his senior,
Has such a caressing air
When he shakes hands with young ladies.

II
(Pompes Funèbres)

This old lady,
Who was fcso old that she was an atheist',
Is now surrounded
By six candles and a crucifix,
While the second wife of a nephew
Makes hay with the things in her house.
Her two cats
Go before her into Avernus;
A sort of chloroformed suttee,
And it is to be hoped that their spirits will walk
With their tails up,
And with a plaintive, gentle mewing,
For it is certain that she has left on this earth
No sound
Save a squabble of female connections,”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“The eyes of this dead lady speak to me,
For here was love, was not to be drowned out.
And here desire, not to be kissed away.
The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems

“O bright Apollo,
τίν' άνδρα, τίν' ήρωα, τίνα θεον,
What god, man, or hero
Shall I place a tin wreath upon!”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs
I am compelled to conclude
That man is the superior animal.
When I consider the curious habits of man
I confess, my friend, I am puzzeled.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound

“Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed.”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems

“I, who have seen you amid the primal things,
Was angry when they spoke your name
In ordinary places.

— Ezra Pound, from “Francesca,” Selected Poems of Ezra Pound. (New Directions January 17, 1957)”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems of Ezra Pound