Ezra Pound

Here you will find theLong PoemL'Homme Moyen Sensuel诗人庞德的

L'Homme Moyen Sensuel

那我的国家,我会内叶,希望set some misconceptions right. My country? I love it well, and those good fellows Who, since their wit's unknown, escape the gallows. But you stuffed coats who're neither tepid nor distinctly boreal, Pimping, conceited, placid, editorial, Could I but speak as 'twere in the 'Restoration' I would articulate your perdamnation. This year perforce I must with circumspection For Mencken states somewhere, in this connection: `It is a moral nation we infest.' Despite such reins and checks I'll do my best, An art! You all respect the arts, from that infant tick Who's now the editor of The Altantic, From Comstock's self, down to the meanest resident, Till up again, right up, we reach the president, Who shows his taste in his ambassadors: A novelist, a publisher, to pay old scores, A novelist, a publisher and a preacher, That's sent to Holland, a most particular feature, Henry Van Dyke, who thinks to charm the Muse you pack her in A sort of stinking deliquescent saccharine. The constitution of our land, O Socrates, Was made to incubate such mediocrities, These and a state in books that's grown perennial And antedates the Philadelphia centennial. Still I'd respect you more if you could bury Mabie, and Lyman Abbot and George Woodberry, For minds so wholly founded upon quotations Are not the best of pulse for infant nations. Dulness herself, that abject spirit, chortles To see your forty self-baptized immortals, And holds her sides where swelling laughter cracks 'em Before the 6Ars Poetica' of Hiram Maxim. All one can say of this refining medium Is cZut! Cinque lettres!' a banished gallic idiom, Their doddering ignorance is waxed so notable 'Tis time that it was capped with something quotable. Here Radway grew, the fruit of pantosocracy, The very fairest flower of their gynocracy. Radway ? My hero, for it will be more inspiring If I set forth a bawdy plot like Byron Than if I treat the nation as a whole. Radway grew up. These forces shaped his soul; These, and yet God, and Dr. Parkhurst's god, the N.Y. Journal (Which pays him more per week than The Supernal). These and another godlet of that day, your day (You feed a hen on grease, perhaps she'll lay The sterile egg that is still eatable: 'Prolific Noyes' with output undefeatable). From these he (Radway) learnt, from provosts and from editors unyielding And innocent of Stendhal, Flaubert, Maupassant and Fielding. They set their mind (it's still in that condition) May we repeat; the Centennial Exposition At Philadelphia, 1876? What it knew then, it knows, and there it sticks. And yet another, a 'charming man', `sweet nature,' but was Gilder, De mortuis verum, truly the master builder? From these he learnt. Poe, Whitman, Whistler, men, their recognition Was got abroad, what better luck do you wish 'em, When writing well has not yet been forgiven In Boston, to Henry James, the greatest whom we've seen living. And timorous love of the innocuous Brought from Gt. Britain and dumped down a'top of us, Till you may take your choice: to feel the edge of satire or Read Bennett or some other flaccid flatterer. Despite it all, despite your Red Bloods, febrile concupiscence Whose blubbering yowls you take for passion's essence; Despite it all, your compound predilection For ignorance, its growth and its protection (Vide the tariff), I will hang simple facts Upon a tale, to combat other tracts, 'Message to Garcia,' Mosher's propagandas That are the nation's botts, collicks and glanders. Or from the feats of Sumner cull it? Think, Could Freud or Jung'unfathom such a sink? My hero, Radway, I have named, in truth, Some forces among those which 'formed' his youth: These heavy weights, these dodgers and these preachers, Crusaders, lecturers and secret lechers, Who wrought about his 'soul' their stale infection. These are the high-brows, and to this collection The social itch, the almost, all but, not quite, fascinating, Piquante, delicious, luscious, captivating: Puffed satin, and silk stockings, where the knee Clings to the skirt in strict (vide: 'Vogue') propriety. Three thousand chorus girls and all unkissed, state sans song, sans home-grown wine, sans realist! 'Tell me not in mournful wish-wash Life's a sort of sugared dish-wash!' Radway had read the various evening papers And yearned to imitate the Waldorf capers As held before him in that unsullied mirror The daily press, and monthlies nine cents dearer. They held the very marrow of the ideals That fed his spirit; were his mental meals. Also, he'd read of Christian virtues in That canting rag called Everybody's Magazine, And heard a clergy that tries on more wheezes Than e'er were