EZRA POUND ON WINTER.

January 31, 2015 at 10:57 PM · Literature

EZRA POUND ON WINTER. In RAB’s post on snow poems, she asked for our favorite snow poems. I was waiting for the blizzard to begin and listed a poem about the end of winter: Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself by Wallace Stevens (I posted on it here on March 1, 2007.)

Also influenced by my pre-blizzard feelings, I submitted Ezra Pound’s Ancient Music:

Ancient Music

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham
Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ’gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.