Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HUGH SELWYN MAUBERLEY: 2 by EZRA POUND

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: THE AGE DEMANDED AN IMAGE / OF ITS ACCELERATED IMAGE
Last Line: "OR THE ""SCULPTURE"" OF RHYME."
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 mold in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose cinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.



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