Art is a journey into the most unknown thing of all - oneself. Nobody knows his own frontiers… I don’t think I’d ever want to take a road if I knew where it led.

Louis Kahan
Photograph of Ezra Pound signing a book
Photograph of the hands of Ezra Pound holding an open book with a table in the background
    Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
    

Ts'ai Chi'h


The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange-coloured rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.
    

Fan-Piece, for Her Imperial Lord


O Fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside.
chagalov: Ezra Pound reading a book sitting on a wicker chair, Venise, 1963 -by Walter Mori  [+] from and more : ‘Writers reading’ in Panorama
    

De Ægypto

I even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

I have beheld the Lady of Life,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.

Green and gray is her raiment,
Trailing along the wind.

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

Manus animam pinxit,
My pen is in my hand

To write the acceptable word… .
My mouth to chant the pure singing!

Who hath the mouth to receive it,
The song of the Lotus of Kumi?

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

I am flame that riseth in the sun,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.

The moon is upon my forehead,
The winds are under my lips.

The moon is a great pearl in the waters of sapphire,
Cool to my fingers the flowing waters.

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.
The Alchemist


Chant for the Transmutation of Metals

SAÎL of Claustra, Aelis, Azalais,

As you move among the bright trees;
As your voices, under the larches of Paradise
Make a clear sound,
Saîl of Claustra, Aelis, Azalais,
Raimona, Tibors, Berangèrë,
‘Neath the dark gleam of the sky;
Under night, the peacock-throated,
Bring the saffron-coloured shell,
Bring the red gold of the maple,
Bring the light of the birch tree in autumn
Mirals, Cembelins, Audiarda,
Remember this fire.
Elain, Tireis, Alcmena
‘Mid the silver rustling of wheat,
Agradiva, Anhes, Ardenca,
From the plum-coloured lake, in stillness,
From the molten dyes of the water
Bring the burnished nature of fire;
Briseis, Lianor, Loica,
From the wide earth and the olive,
From the poplars weeping their amber,
By the bright flame of the fishing torch
Remember this fire.
Midonz, with the gold of the sun, the leaf of the popIar,
by the light of the amber,
Midonz, daughter of the sun, shaft of the tree,
silver of the leaf, light of the yellow of the amber,
Midonz, gift of the God, gift of the light,
gift of the amber of the sun,
 Give light to the metal…(more)

from

RIPOSTES
(1915)

Ezra Pound

    See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind,
        and half turn back…
    The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.
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