Villonaud for This Yule

Towards the Noel that morte saison

(Christ make the shepherds' homage dear!)

Then when the grey wolves everychone

Drink of the winds their chill small-beer

5

And lap o' the snows food's gueredon

Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer

(Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!)

Wining the ghosts of yester-year.

Ask ye what ghost I dream upon?

10

(What of the magians’ scented gear?)

The ghosts of dead loves everyone

That make the stark winds reek with fear

Lest love return with the foison sun

And slay the memories that me cheer

15

(Such as I drink to mine fashion)

Wining the ghosts of yester-year.

Where are the joys my heart had won?

(Saturn and Mars to Zeus drawn near!)¹

Where are athe lips mine lay upon,

20

Aye! where are the glances feat and clear

That bade my heart his valor don?

I skoal to the eyes as grey-blown meer

(Who knows whose was that paragon?)

Wining the ghosts of yester-year.

25

Prince: ask me not what I have done

Nor what God hath that can me cheer

But ye ask first where the winds are gone

Wining the ghosts of yester-year.

¹Signum Nativitatis.

—
Ezra Pound

Personæ, 1926