Xenia

I The Street in Soho

Out of the overhanging gray mist

There came an ugly little man

Carrying beautiful flowers.

5

II

The cool fingers of science delight me;

For they are cool with sympathy,

There is nothing of fever about them.

III

10

Rest me with Chinese colors,

For I think the glass is evil.

IV

The wind moves above the wheat—

With a silver crashing,

15

A thin war of metal.

I have known the golden disc,

I have seen it melting above me.

I have known the stone-bright place,

The hall of clear colors.

20

V

O glass subtly evil, O confusion of colors!

O light bound and bent in, O soul of the captive,

Why am I warned? Why am I sent away?

Why is your glitter full of curious mistrust?

25

O glass subtle and cunning, O powdery gold!

O filaments of amber, two-faced iridescence!

VI

Go, my songs, seek your praise from the young and from the intolerant,

Move among the lovers of perfection alone.

30

Seek ever to stand in the hard Sophoclean light

And take your wounds from it gladly.

VII Dum Capitolium Scandet

How many will come after me

singing as well as I sing, none better;

35

Telling the heart of their truth

as I have taught them to tell it;

Fruit of my seed,

O my unnamable children.

Know then that I loved you from afore-time,

40

Clear speakers, naked in the sun, untrammelled.

—
Ezra Pound

Personae, 1910