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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


HUGH SELWYN MAUBERLEY: 3 by EZRA POUND

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: THE TEA-ROSE TEA-GOWN, ETC.
Last Line: SHALL I PLACE A TIN WREATH UPON!

The tea-rose tea-gown, etc.
Supplants the mousseline of Cos,
The pianola "replaces"
Sappho's barbitos.

Christ follows Dionysus,
Phallic and ambrosial
Made way for macerations,
Caliban casts out Ariel.

All things are a flowing,
Sage Heracleitus says;
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall outlast our days.

Even the Christian beauty
Defects -- after Samothrace,
We see To Kalon
Decreed in the market place.

Faun's flesh is not to us,
Nor the saint's vision.
We have the press for wafer;
Franchise for circumcision.

All men, in law, are equals.
Free of Pisistratus,
We choose a knave or an eunuch
To rule over us.

O bright Apollo,
Tin andra, tin heroa, tin a theon,
What god, man, or hero
Shall I place a tin wreath upon!



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