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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Ezra Pound

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Bellaires

Ezra Pound

  • Aus meinen grossen Schmerzen
  • Mach’ ich die kleinen Lieder.

  • THE GOOD Bellaires

    Do not understand the conduct of this world’s affairs.

    In fact they understood them so badly

    That they have had to cross the channel.

    Nine lawyers, four counsels, five judges and three proctors of the King,

    Together with the respective wives, husbands, sisters and heterogeneous connections of the good Bellaires,

    Met to discuss their affairs;

    But the good Bellaires have so little understood their affairs

    That now there is no one at all

    Who can understand any affair of theirs. Yet

    Fourteen hunters still eat in the stables of

    The good Squire Bellaire;

    But these may not suffer attainder,

    For they may not belong to the good Squire Bellaire

    But to his wife.

    On the contrary, if they do not belong to his wife,

    He will plead

    A “freedom from attainder”

    For twelve horses and also for twelve boarhounds

    From Charles the Fourth;

    And a further freedom for the remainder

    Of horses, from Henry the Fourth.

    But the judges,

    Being free of mediaeval scholarship,

    Will pay no attention to this,

    And there will be only the more confusion,

    Replevin, estoppel, espavin and what not.

    Nine lawyers, four counsels, etc.,

    Met to discuss their affairs,

    But the sole result was bills

    From lawyers to whom no one was indebted,

    And even the lawyers

    Were uncertain who was supposed to be indebted to them.

    Wherefore the good Squire Bellaire

    Resides now at Agde and Biaucaire.

    To Carcassonne, Pui, and Alais

    He fareth from day to day,

    Or takes the sea air

    Between Marseilles

    And Beziers.

    And for all this I have considerable regret,

    For the good Bellaires

    Are very charming people.