Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


ORTUS by EZRA POUND

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: HOW HAVE I LABOURED?
Last Line: NO PORTION, BUT A BEING.

How have I laboured?
How have I not laboured
To bring her soul to birth,
To give these elements a name and a centre!
She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.
She has no name, and no place.
How have I laboured to bring her soul into separation;
To give her a name and her being!

Surely you are bound and entwined,
You are mingled with the elements unborn;
I have loved a stream and a shadow.

I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech you learn to say "I,"
When I question you;
For you are no part, but a whole,
No portion, but a being.




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