Ezra Pound

From “Contemporania”

YOU were praised, my books,

because I had just come from the country;

I was twenty years behind the times

so you found an audience ready.

I do not disown you,

do not you disown your progeny.

Here they stand without quaint devices,

Here they are with nothing archaic about them.

Watch the reporters spit,

Watch the anger of the professors,

Watch how the pretty ladies revile them:

“Is this,” they say, “the nonsense

that we expect of poets?”

“Where is the Picturesque?”

“Where is the vertigo of emotion?””

“No! his first work was the best.”

“Poor Dear! he has lost his illusions.

Go, little naked and impudent songs,

Go with a light foot!

(Or with two light feet, if it please you!)

Go and dance shamelessly!

Go with an impertinent frolic!

Greet the grave and the stodgy,

Salute them with your thumbs at your noses.

Here are your bells and confetti.

Go! rejuvenate things!

Rejuvenate even “The Spectator.”

Go! and make cat calls!

Dance and make people blush,

Dance the dance of the phallus

and tell anecdotes of Cybele!

Speak of the indecorous conduct of the Gods!

(Tell it to Mr. Strachey.)

Ruffle the skirts of prudes,

speak of their knees and ankles.

But, above all, go to practical people—

go! jangle their door-bells!

Say that you do no work

and that you will live forever.