Pound, Ezra (1920) _Hugh Selwyn Mauberley_
"VOCAT ÆSTUS IN UMBRAM" _Nemesianus Ec. IV._
Transcriber's note: Ezra Pound’s _Hugh Selwyn Mauberley_ contains accents, diphthongs and Greek characters. Facsimile images of the poems as originally published are freely available online from the Internet Archive. Please use these images to check for any errors or inadequacies in this electronic text.
_Ode pour l'élection de son sepulcher_ II. III. IV. V. _Yeux Glauques_ _"Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma"_ _Brennbaum_ _Mr. Nixon_ X. XI. XII.
I. II. III. _"The age demanded"_ IV. V. _Medallion_
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No hardly, but, seeing he had been born In a half savage country, out of date; Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn; Capaneus; trout for factitious bait;
_ἴδμεν γάρ τοι πάν πάνθ', όσ' ένι Τροίη_ Caught in the unstopped ear; Giving the rocks small lee-way The 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 trentiesme De son eage_; the case presents No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.
THE age demanded an image Of its accelerated grimace, Something for the modern stage, Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;
Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries Of the inward gaze; Better mendacities Than the classics in paraphrase!
The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster, Made with no loss of time, A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.
THE tea-rose tea-gown, etc. Supplants the mousseline of Cos, The pianola "replaces" Sappho's barbitos.
Christ follows Dionysus, Phallic and ambrosial Made way for macerations; Caliban casts out Ariel.
All things are a flowing, Sage Heracleitus says; But a tawdry cheapness Shall reign throughout our days.
Even the Christian beauty Defects--after Samothrace; We see _το καλόν_ 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.