EXULTATIONS

OF

EZRA POUND

LONDON

ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET

M CM IX

I am an eternal spirit and the things I
make are but ephemera, yet I endure:
Yea, and the little earth crumbles beneath
our feet and we endure.

TO CARLOS TRACY CHESTER

"amicitiae longaevitate"

I have to thank the Editors of the English Review and the Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette for permission to include in this volume certain poems which originally appeared in those papers.

CONTENTS

GUIDO INVITES YOU THUS
NIGHT LITANY
SANDALPHON
SESTINA: ALTAFORTE
PIERE VIDAL OLD
BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE
HYMN III FROM THE LATIN OF FLAMINIUS
SESTINA FOR YSOLT
PORTRAIT (FROM "LA MÈRE INCONNUE")
FAIR HELENA
LAUDANTES DECEM
AUX BELLES DE LONDRES
FRANCESCA
GREEK EPIGRAM
COLUMBUS' EPITAPH
PLOTINUS
ON HIS OWN FACE IN A GLASS
HISTRION
THE EYES
DEFIANCE
SONG
NEL BIANCHEGGIAR
NILS LYKKE
A SONG OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER
PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING
ALBA INNOMINATA
PLANH

EXULTATIONS

Guido invites you thus[1]


"Lappo I leave behind and Dante too,
Lo, I would sail the seas with thee alone!
Talk me no love talk, no bought-cheap fiddl'ry,
Mine is the ship and thine the merchandise,
All the blind earth knows not th' emprise
Whereto thou calledst and whereto I call.

Lo, I have seen thee bound about with dreams,
Lo, I have known thy heart and its desire;
Life, all of it, my sea, and all men's streams
Are fused in it as flames of an altar fire!

Lo, thou hast voyaged not! The ship is mine."

Night Litany


O Dieu, purifiez nos cœurs!
purifiez nos cœurs!

Yea the lines hast thou laid unto me
in pleasant places,
And the beauty of this thy Venice
hast thou shown unto me
Until is its loveliness become unto me
a thing of tears.

O God, what great kindness
have we done in times past
and forgotten it,
That thou givest this wonder unto us,
O God of