Cathay: "Artists are the antennae of the race but the bullet-headed many will never learn to trust their great artists"

By Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was born on October 30th, 1885 in Hailey, Idaho.

Pound lived a complicated life that is, in parts, difficult to understand and reconcile with. He was an early founder of the Imagist Movement and was instrumental in helping to shape and publish the works of such luminaries as T.S Eliot, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost.

Much of his life was spent abroad initially working on various literary magazines as he attempted to start his own career as a poet. However his ideas tended to change radically and these are clearly charted in his numerous books of poems that he published.

After the First World War he became a strident critic of International capitalism. Unlike many who moved to the left Pound moved more and more to the right. He began to write various economic tracts and eventually was a supporter of both Mussolini and Hitler. During the war he recorded and aired several hundred radio broadcasts for the Italian Government, many of them vile in content and virulently anti-Semitic.

Arrested by American forces on charges of treason he spent months in isolation before, being deemed unfit to stand trial, was placed in St Elizabeth’s Psychiatric Hospital for 12 years.

During this time he also worked on his masterwork, The Pisan Cantos, published in 1948 and very controversially awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1949 by the Library of Congress.

He was eventually released from St Elizabeth’s in 1958 and returned to Italy to live until his death in 1972.

"VOCAT ÆSTUS IN UMBRAM"

Nemesianus Ec. IV.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Jan 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781787376984

Book preview

Cathay.  Translations by Ezra Pound

& Other Poems

FOR THE MOST PART FROM THE CHINESE OF RIHAKU, FROM THE NOTES OF THE LATE ERNEST FENOLLOSA, AND THE DECIPHERINGS OF THE PROFESSORS MORI AND ARIGA

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was born on October 30th, 1885 in Hailey, Idaho.

Pound lived a complicated life that is, in parts, difficult to understand and reconcile with.  He was an early founder of the Imagist Movement and was instrumental in helping to shape and publish the works of such luminaries as T.S Eliot, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost.

Much of his life was spent abroad initially working on various literary magazines as he attempted to start his own career as a poet. However his ideas tended to change radically and these are clearly charted in his numerous books of poems that he published.

After the First World War he became a strident critic of International capitalism.  Unlike many who moved to the left Pound moved more and more to the right.  He began to write various economic tracts and eventually was a supporter of both Mussolini and Hitler.  During the war he recorded and aired several hundred radio broadcasts for the Italian Government, many of them vile in content and virulently anti-Semitic.

Arrested by American forces on charges of treason he spent months in isolation before, being deemed unfit to stand trial, was placed in St Elizabeth’s Psychiatric Hospital for 12 years.

During this time he also worked on his masterwork, The Pisan Cantos, published in 1948 and very controversially awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1949 by the Library of Congress.

He was eventually released from St Elizabeth’s in 1958 and returned to Italy to live until his death in 1972. 

Index of Poems

CATHAY

Song of the Bowmen of Shu

The Beautiful Toilet

The River Song

The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter

The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance

Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin

Lament of the Frontier Guard

Exile’s Letter

Four Poems of Departure

Separation on the River Kiang

Taking Leave of a Friend

Leave-taking near Shoku

The City of Choan

South Folk in Cold Country

Sennin Poem by Kakuhaku

A Ballad of the Mulberry Road

Old Idea of Choan by Rosoriu

To-Em-Mei’s The Unmoving Cloud

OTHER POEMS

Near Perigord

Villanelle: The Psychological Hour

Dans un Omnibus de Londres

To a Friend Writing on Cabaret Dancers

Homage to Quintus Septimius Florentis Christianus

Fish and the Shadow

The Seafarer

Ezra Pound - A Short Biography

Ezra Pound - A Concise Bibliography

Rihaku flourished in the eighth century of our era. The Anglo-Saxon Seafarer is of about this period. The other poems from the Chinese are earlier.

SONG OF THE BOWMEN OF SHU

Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots

And saying: When shall we get back to our country?

Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen,

We have no comfort because of these Mongols.

We grub the soft fern-shoots,

When anyone says Return, the others are full of sorrow.

Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty.

Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return.

We grub the old fern-stalks.

We say: Will we be let to go back in October?

There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort.

Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country.

What flower has come into blossom?

Whose chariot? The General's.

Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong.

We have no rest, three battles a month.

By