E. P. Ode Pour L'Election de Son Sepulchre E-book

                                      1920 

                   E. P. ODE POUR L'ELECTION DE SON SEPULCHRE
                           From Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

                                 by Ezra Pound







Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)


EP_ODE

                                  I
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          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          In a half savage country, out of date;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;
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          Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie
          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 trentuniesme
          De son eage; the case presents
          No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.
-

                                  II
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          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.
-

                                 III
-
          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 outlast our days.
-
          Even the Christian beauty
                                                           
          Defects- after Samothrace;
          We see to kalon
          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.
-
          All men, in law, are equals.
          Free of Pisistratus,
          We choose a knave or an eunuch
          To rule over us.
-
          O bright Apollo,
          tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon,
          What god, man, or hero
          Shall I place a tin wreath upon!
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                                  IV
                                                           
-
          THESE fought in any case,
          and some believing,
                          pro domo, in any case...
-
          Some quick to arm,
          some for adventure,
          some from fear of weakness,
          some from fear of censure,
          some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
          learning later...
          some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
-
          Died some, pro patria,
                          non "dulce" non "et decor"...
          walked eye-deep in hell
          believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving
          came home, home to a lie,
          home to many deceits,
          home to old lies and new infamy;
                                                          
          usury age-old and age-thick
          and liars in public places.
-
          Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
          Young blood and high blood,
          fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
-
          fortitude as never before
-
          frankness as never before,
          disillusions as never told in the old days,
          hysterias, trench confessions,
          laughter out of dead bellies.
-

                                  V
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          THERE died a myriad,
          And of the best, among them,
          For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
          For a botched civilization,
                                                          
-
          Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
          Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,
-
          For two gross of broken statues,
          For a few thousand battered books.

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                               THE END