Ezra Pound, We have the press for wafer

From E. P. Ode pour l'election de son sepulchre, from Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

I

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In a half savage country, out of date;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;

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.

   Cf. Ibsen, No taste for glory,   Hugh of St. Victor, Learn gladly from everyone,
Samuel Johnson, Prepare for eternity,   Hoelderlin, The God is near, and hard to grasp,
Gregory Theologian, Education is the highest good,     Papacy

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