End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound

by Hilda Doolittle

  Some strange new thing she can not tell

  Some mystic danaan spell

  When the wind bloweth merrily

  Maketh her long hands tremble some

  Her lips part, tho no words come

  When the wind bloweth merrily

  Her hair is brown as the leaves that fall

  She hath no villeiny at all

  When the wind bloweth merrily

  When the wind bloweth my Lady’s hair

  I bow with a murmured prayer

  For the wind that bloweth merrily

  With my lady far, the days be long

  For her homing I’d clasp the song

  That the wind bloweth merrily

  Wind song: this is my Lady’s praise

  What be lipped words of all men’s lays

  When the wind bloweth merrily

  To my Lady needs I send the best

  Only the wind’s song serves that behest.

  For the wind bloweth merrily.

  The Lees

  There is a mellow twilight ’neath the trees

  Soft and hallowed as is a thought of thee,

  Low soundeth a murmurous minstrelsy

  A mingled evensong beneath the breeze

  Each creeping, leaping chorister hath ease

  To sing, to whirr his heart out, joyously;

  Wherefor take thou my laboured litany

  Halting, slow pulsed it is, being the lees

  Of song wine that the master bards of old

  Have left for me to drink thy glory in.

  Yet so these crimson cloudy lees shall hold

  Some faint fragrance of that former wine

  O Love, my White-flower-o-the-Jasamin

  Grant that the kiss upon the cup be thine.

  Per Saecula

  Where have I met thee? Oh Love tell me where

  In the aisles of the past were thy lips known

  To me, as where your breath as roses blown

  Across my cheek? Where through your tangled hair

  Have I seen the eyes of my desire bear

  Hearts crimson unto my heart’s heart? As mown

  Grain of the gold brown harvest from seed sown

  Bountifully amid spring’s emeralds fair

  So is our reaping now: But speak that spring

  Whisper in the murmurous twilight where

  I met thee mid the roses of the past

  Where you gave your first kiss in the last,

  Whisper the name thine eyes were wont to bear

  The mystic name whereof my heart shall sing.

  Shadow

  Darkness hath descended upon the earth

  And there are no stars

  The sun from zenith to nadir is fallen

  And the thick air stifleth me.

  Sodden go the hours

  Yea the minutes are molten lead, stinging and heavy

  I saw her yesterday.

  And lo, there is no time

  Each second being eternity.

  Peace! trouble me no more.

  Yes, I know your eyes clear pools

  Holding the summer sky within their depth

  But trouble me not

  I saw HER yesterday.

  Peace! your hair is spun gold fine wrought and wondrous

  But trouble me not

  I saw her yester e’en.

  Darkness hath filled the earth at her going

  And the wind is listless and heavy

  When will the day come: when will the sun

  Be royal in bounty

  From nadir to zenith up-leaping?

  For lo! his steeds are weary, not having beheld her

  Since sun set.

  Oh that the sun steeds were wise

  Arising to seek her!

  The sun sleepeth in Orcus.

  From zenith to nadir is fallen his glory

  Is fallen, is fallen his wonder

  I saw her yesterday

  Since when there is no sun.

  ONE WHOSE SOUL WAS

  SO FULL OF ROSE

  LEAVES STEEPED IN

  GOLDEN WINE THAT THERE

  WAS NO ROOM THEREIN

  FOR ANY VILLEINY—

  The Banners

  My wandring brother wind wild bloweth now

  October whirleth leaves in dusty air

  September’s yellow gold that mingled fair

  With green and rose tint on each maple bough

  Sulks into deeper browns and doth endow

  The wood-way with a tapis broidered rare—And where

  King oak tree his brave panoply did wear

  Of quaint device and colored

  The dawn doth show him but a shorn stave now.

  If where the wood stood in its pageantry

  A castle holyday’d to greet its queen

  Now but the barren banner poles be seen

  Yea that the ruined walls stand ruefully

  I make no grief, nor do I feel this teen

  Sith thou mak’st autumn as spring’s noon to me.

  “To draw back into the soul of things.” PAX

  Meseemeth that ’tis sweet this wise to lie

  Somewhile quite parted from the stream of things

  Watching alone the clouds’ high wanderings

  As free as they are in some wind-free sky

  While naught but thoughts of thee as clouds glide by

  Or come as faint blown wind across the strings

  Of this odd lute of mine imaginings

  And make it whisper me quaint things and high

  Such peace as this would make death’s self most sweet

  Could I but know, Thou maiden of the sun,

  That thus thy presence would go forth with me

  Unto that shadow land where ages’ feet

  Have wandered, and where life’s dreaming done

  Love may dream on unto eternity.

  Green Harping

  Thou that wearest the doeskins’ hue

  “Hallew!” “Hallew!”

  Tho the elfin horn shall call to you

  ’true be true

  By the violets in thy leaf brown hair

  ’ware be ware

  Tho the elfin knights shall find thee fair

  ’ware too fair

  Tho hosts of night shall hail thee queen

  In the Eringreen

  The elf old queen hath sorrow seen

  and teen much teen

  Tho the shadow lords shall marshall their might

  afore thy sight

  Hold thou thy heart for my heart’s right

  in their despite

  Tho night shall dwell in thy child eyes

  ’wise be wise

  That thy child heart to mine emprise

  ’plies replies

  For night shall flee from the fore-sun’s flame

  ’shame in shame

  Tho my heart to thee embeggared came

  ’same ’tis the same

  That lordship o’er the light doth hold

  ’bold quite bold

  And thee to my kingdom I enfold

  By spell of old.

  From another sonnet.

  THY FINGERS MOVE AGAIN ACROSS

  MY FACE

  AS LITTLE WINDS THAT DREAM

  BUT DARE IN NO WISE TELL THEIR

  DREAM ALOUD-

  Li Bel Chasteus

  That castle stands the highest in the Land

  Far seen and mighty

  —Of the great hewn stones

  What shall I say?

  And deep foss-way

  That far beneath us bore of old

  A swelling turbid sea

  Hill-born and torrent-wise

  Unto the fields below, where

  Staunch villein and wandered

  Burgher held the land and tilled

  Long labouring for gold of wheat grain

  And to see the beards come forth

  For barley’s even-tide.

  But circle arched above the hum of life
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  We dwelt, amid the

  Ancient boulders

  Gods had hewn

  And druids runed

  Unto the birth most wondrous

  That had grown

  A mighty fortress while the world had slept

  And we awaited in the shadows there

  While mighty hands had laboured sightlessly

  And shaped this wonder ’bove the ways of men.

  Meseems we could not see the great green waves

  Nor rocky shore by Tintagoel

  From this our hold

  But came faint murmuring as undersong

  E’en as the burgher’s hum arose

  And died as faint wind melody

  Beneath our gates.

  The Arches

  That wind-swept castle hight with thee alone

  Above the dust and rumble of the earth:

  It seemeth to mine heart another birth

  To date the mystic time, whence I have grown

  Unto new mastery of dreams and thrown

  Old shadows from me as of lesser worth.

  For ‘neath the arches where the winds make mirth

  We two may drink a lordship all our own.

  Yea alway had I longed to hold real dreams

  Not laboured things we make beneath the sun

  But such as come unsummoned in our sleep,

  And this above thine other gifts, meseems

  Thou’st given me. So when the day is done

  Thou meet me ’bove the world in this our keep.

  Era Venuta

  Some times I feel thy cheek against my face

  Close pressing, soft as is the South’s first breath

  That all the soft small earth things summoneth

  To spring in woodland and in meadow space

  Yea sometimes in a dusty man-filled place

  Meseemeth somewise thy hair wandereth

  Across my eyes as mist that halloweth

  My sight and shutteth out the world’s disgrace

  That is apostasy of them that fail

  Denying that God doth God’s self disclose

  In every beauty that they will not see.

  Naethless when this sweetness comes to me

  I know thy thought doth pass as elfin “Hail”

  That beareth thee, as doth the wind a rose.

  The Tree

  I stood still and was a tree amid the wood

  Knowing the truth of things unseen before

  Of Daphne and the laurel bow

  And that god-feasting couple old

  That grew elm-oak amid the wold

  ‘Twas not until the gods had been

  Kindly entreated and been brought within

  Unto the hearth of their hearts’ home

  That they might do this wonder thing.

  Naethless I have been a tree amid the wood

  And many new things understood

  That were rank folly to my head before.

  Being before the vision of Li Bel Chasteus

  “E’en as lang syne from shadowy castle towers

  “Thy striving eyes did wander to discern

  “Which compass point my homeward way should be.”

  For you meseem some strange strong soul of wine …

  Hair some hesitating wind shall blow backward as some brown haze

  That drifteth from thy face as fog that shifteth from fore some

  Hidden light and slow discloseth that the light is fair—

  Thu Ides Til

  O thou of Maydes all most wonder sweet

  That art my comfort eke and my solace

  Whan thee I find in any wolde or place

  I doon thee reverence as is most meet.

  To cry thy prayse I nill nat be discreet

  Thou hast swich debonairite and grace

  Swich gentyl smile thy alderfayrest face

  To run thy prayse I ne hold not my feet.

  My Lady, tho I ne me hold thee fro

  Nor streyve with thee by any game to play

  But offer only thee myn own herte reede

  I prey by love that thou wilt kindness do

  And that thou keep my song by night and day

  As shadow blood from myn own herte y-blede.

  L’Envoi

  Full oft in musty, quaint lined book of old

  Have I found rhyming for some maiden quaint

  In fashioned chançonnette and teen’s compleynt

  The sweet-scent loves of chivalry be told

  With fair conceit and flower manifold

  Right subtle tongued in complex verse restraint

  Against their lyric might my skill’s but faint.

  My flower’s outworn, the later rhyme runs cold

  Naethless, I loving cease me not to sing

  Love song was blossom to the searching breeze

  E’er Paris’ rhyming had availed to bring

  Helen and Greece for towered Troy’s disease

  Wherefor, these petals to the winds I fling

  ’Vail they or fail they as the winds shall please.

  The Wind

  “I would go forth into the night” she saith.

  The night is very cold beneath the moon

  ’Twere meet, my Love that thou went forth at noon

  For now the sky is cold as very death.

  And then she drew a little sobbing breath

  “Without a little lonely wind doth crune

  And calleth me with wandered elfin rune

  That all true wind-born children summoneth

  Dear, hold me closer! so, till it is past

  Nay I am gone the while. Await!”

  And I await her here for I have understood.

  Yet held I not this very wind—bound fast

  Within the castle of my soul I would

  For very faintness at her parting, die.

  Sancta Patrona

  Domina Caelae

  Out of thy purity

  Saint Hilda pray for me.

  Lay on my forehead

  The hands of thy blessing.

  Saint Hilda pray for me

  Lay on my forehead

  Cool hands of thy blessing

  Out of thy purity

  Lay on my forehead

  White hands of thy blessing.

  Virgo caelicola

  Ora pro nobis.