The Age Demanded an Image

The age demanded an image
Of its accelerated grimace,
Something for the modern stage,
Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;

Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries
Of the inward gaze;
Better mendacities
Than the classics in paraphrase!

The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme....

All men, in law, are equals.
Free of Peisistratus,
We choose a knave or an eunuch
To rule over us.
-- Hugh Selwyn Mauberly -- Ezra Pound

Posted by gerardvanderleun at July 16, 2013 2:06 AM