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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


HUGH SELWYN MAUBERLEY: 6. YEUX GLAUQUES by EZRA POUND

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: GLADSTONE WAS STILL RESPECTED / WHEN JOHN RUSKIN PRODUCED
Last Line: ADULTERIES.
Subject(s): BUCHANAN, ROBERT WILLIAM (1841-1901); BURNE-JONES, EDWARD COLEY (1833-1898); CRITICS & CRITICISM; DRAMATISTS; NOVELS & NOVELISTS; PAINTINGS & PAINTERS; PLAYS & PLAYWRIGHTS ; POETRY & POETS; RUSKIN, JOHN (1819-1900); DRAMATISTS;

Gladstone was still respected,
When John Ruskin produced
"King's Treasuries"; Swinburne
And Rossetti still abused.

Fetid Buchanan lifted up his voice
When that faun's head of hers
Became a pastime for
Painters and adulterers.

The Burne-Jones cartons
Have preserved her eyes;
Still, at the Tate, they teach
Cophetua to rhapsodize;

Thin like brook water,
With a vacant gaze.
The English Rubaiyat was stillborn
In those days.

The thin, clear gaze, the same
Still darts out faunlike from the half-ruined face,
Questing and passive . . .
"Ah, poor Jenny's case . . ."

Bewildered that a world
Shows no surprise
At her last maquero's
Adulteries.



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