monday poem #34: Ezra Pound, "The Spring"
I'm not a fan of Ezra Pound. Even leaving his politics out of it, I mostly don't like his poems. On the other hand, 20th c. poetry would simply not be the same-would be much impoverished-without his influence (cf sockkpuppett's comparison of him to Eminem); and he was a brilliant editor.
And I do like some of his poems, including a couple that are more than three lines long. Case in point: this one.
The Greek epigraph is, I believe, part of the first line of the poem reproduced here; but that's a guess based entirely on my recognition of "Cydonian," since I don't know Greek myself.
The Spring
'Ηρι μεν αι τε Κυδωνιαι-Ibycus
Cydonian spring with her attendant train,
Maelids and water-girls,
Stepping beneath a boisterous wind from Thrace,
Throughout this sylvan place
Spreads the bright tips,
And every vine-stock is
Clad in new brilliancies.
And wild desire
Falls like black lightning.
O bewildered heart,
Though every branch have back what last year lost,
She, who moved here amid the cyclamen,
Moves only now a clinging tenuous ghost.
- Ezra Pound
from Selected Poems of Ezra Pound
And I do like some of his poems, including a couple that are more than three lines long. Case in point: this one.
The Greek epigraph is, I believe, part of the first line of the poem reproduced here; but that's a guess based entirely on my recognition of "Cydonian," since I don't know Greek myself.
The Spring
'Ηρι μεν αι τε Κυδωνιαι-Ibycus
Cydonian spring with her attendant train,
Maelids and water-girls,
Stepping beneath a boisterous wind from Thrace,
Throughout this sylvan place
Spreads the bright tips,
And every vine-stock is
Clad in new brilliancies.
And wild desire
Falls like black lightning.
O bewildered heart,
Though every branch have back what last year lost,
She, who moved here amid the cyclamen,
Moves only now a clinging tenuous ghost.
- Ezra Pound
from Selected Poems of Ezra Pound