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AT THE GRAVE OF EZRA POUND, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Cimmerian? Anyway, a swart day
Last Line: Gather the dark against him?




Venice is an excellent place to come to from Crawfordsville, Indiana.
(Pavannes and Divagations)


Cimmerian? Anyway, a swart day,
Its silence immense, and unfinished.
The leaden water pleated itself
As our boat drew close to the quay.
We passed through the aisle of bambini,
(White stones with colored photographs,
Cut flowers in tender urns,
The pebbles washed, the graves shut and tidy),
And found the poet from Crawfordsville
In a dank, shady plot,
EZRA POUND, drilled into lichened rock,
Readable but not believable.
No sylva nympharum shone
Around him, tremulously clear.
No goddess of fair knees or cave of Nerea,
No gold-leaved, pleached arbor of stone.
Olga alone, faithful and morose,
Shared his bracket of sour undergrowth,
Where someone had knelt to plant the myrtle,
Covering them both.
Whatever he might be writing
Wrathfully against our age
Moulders unheard, unwanted
On that tangled page.
Aletha, goddess of sea-farers, defend him.
He fished by obsinate isles.
In the gloom, what further betrayals
Gather the dark against him?






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