The Seafarer

1. The Seafarer Ezra Pound

2. Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then • Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now • The heart's thought that I on high streams • The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone. • Moaneth alway my mind's lust • That I fare forth, that I afar hence

3. Seek out a foreign fastness. • For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst, • Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed; • Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful

4. But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare • Whatever his lord will. • He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having • Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight • Nor any whit else save the wave's slash, • Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.

5. Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries, • Fields to fairness, land fares brisker, • All this admonisheth man eager of mood, • The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks • On flood-ways to be far departing.

6. Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying, • He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow, • The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not — • He the prosperous man — what some perform • Where wandering them widest draweth. • So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,

7. My mood 'mid the mere-flood, • Over the whale's acre, would wander wide. • On earth's shelter cometh oft to me, • Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer, • Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,

8. O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow • My lord deems to me this dead life • On loan and on land, I believe not • That any earth-weal eternal standeth • Save there be somewhat calamitous • That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.

9. Disease or oldness or sword-hate • Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body. • And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after — • Laud of the living, boasteth some last word, • That he will work ere he pass onward,

10. Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice, • Daring ado, ... • So that all men shall honour him after • And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English, • Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast, • Delight mid the doughty.

11.                      Days little durable, • And all arrogance of earthen riches, • There come now no kings nor Cæsars • Nor gold-giving lords like those gone. • Howe'er in mirth most magnified, • Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,

12. Drear all this excellence, delights undurable! • Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth. • Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low. • Earthly glory ageth and seareth. • No man at all going the earth's gait, • But age fares against him, his face paleth,

13. Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions, • Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven, • Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth, • Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,

14. Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart, • And though he strew the grave with gold, • His born brothers, their buried bodies • Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

15. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T S Eliot

16. S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse • A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, • Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. • Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo • Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, • Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

17. ("If I but thought that my response were made • to one perhaps returning to the world, • this tongue of flame would cease to flicker. • But since, up from these depths, no one has yet • returned alive, if what I hear is true, • I answer without fear of being shamed. • Inferno (XXVII, 61–66))

18. LET us go then, you and I, • When the evening is spread out against the sky • Like a patient etherized upon a table; • Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, • The muttering retreats

19. Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels • And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: • Streets that follow like a tedious argument • Of insidious intent • To lead you to an overwhelming question….

20. Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” • Let us go and make our visit. • In the room the women come and go • Talking of Michelangelo.

21. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, • The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes • Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

22. Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, • Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, • Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

23. And seeing that it was a soft October night, • Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. • And indeed there will be time • For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, • Rubbing its back upon the window panes;

24. There will be time, there will be time • To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; • There will be time to murder and create, • And time for all the works and days of hands • That lift and drop a question on your plate;

25. Time for you and time for me, • And time yet for a hundred indecisions, • And for a hundred visions and revisions, • Before the taking of a toast and tea. • In the room the women come and go

26. Talking of Michelangelo. • And indeed there will be time • To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” • Time to turn back and descend the stair, • With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

27. (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) • My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, • My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— • (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) • Do I dare

28. Disturb the universe? • In a minute there is time • For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. • For I have known them all already, known them all: • Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

29. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; • I know the voices dying with a dying fall • Beneath the music from a farther room. • So how should I presume? • And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

30. The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, • And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, • When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, • Then how should I begin • To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

31. And how should I presume? • And I have known the arms already, known them all— • Arms that are braceleted and white and bare • (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) • Is it perfume from a dress

32. That makes me so digress? • Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. • And should I then presume? • And how should I begin? • . . . . . . . . • Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

33. And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes • Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… • I should have been a pair of ragged claws

34. Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. • . . . . . . . . • And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

35. Smoothed by long fingers, • Asleep … tired … or it malingers, • Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. • Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, • Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?