Canto, day

I’m working through Ezra Pound’s Cantos. I have never read the early ones, and they are good. Young man’s work, but good.

Extract, Canto II.

And poor old Homer blind, blind, as a bat,
Ear, ear for the sea-surge, murmur of old men’s voices:
“Let her go back to the ships,
Back among Grecian faces, lest evil come on our own,
Evil and further evil, and a curse cursed on our children,
Moves, yes she moves like a goddess
And has the face of a god
and the voice of Schoeney’s daughters,
And doom goes with her in walking,
Let her go back to the ships,
back among Grecian voices.”
And by the beach-run, Tyro,
Twisted arms of the sea-god,
Lithe sinews of water, gripping her, cross-hold,
And the blue-gray glass of the wave tents them,
Glare azure of water, cold-welter, close cover.
Quiet sun-tawny sand-stretch,
The gulls broad out their wings,
nipping between the splay feathers;
Snipe come for their bath,
bend out their wing-joints,
Spread wet wings to the sun-film,
And by Scios,
to left of the Naxos passage,
Naviform rock overgrown,
algæ cling to its edge,
There is a wine-red glow in the shallows,
a tin flash in the sun-dazzle.

Ezra Pound.