Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
FOR three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start--
No hardly, but, seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
Capaneus; trout for factitious bait;
_{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}', {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}_
Caught in the unstopped ear;
Giving the rocks small lee-way
The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.
His true Penelope was Flaubert,
He fished by obstinate isles;
Observed the elegance of Circe's hair
Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials.
Unaffected by "the march of events,"
He passed from men's memory in _l'an trentiesme
De son eage_; the case presents
No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.
II.
THE age demanded an image
Of its accelerated grimace,
Something for the modern stage,
Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;
Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries
Of the inward gaze;
Better mendacities
Than the classics in paraphrase!
The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.
III.
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 reign throughout our days.
Even the Christian beauty
Defects--after Samothrace;
We see _{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}_
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 Peisistratus,
We choose a knave or an eunuch
To rule over us.
O bright Apollo,
_{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}_,
What god, man, or hero
Shall I place a tin wreath upon!
IV.
THESE fought, in any case,
and some believing, pro domo, in any case . .
Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later . . .
some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some "pro patria, non dulce non et decor". .
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.
Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
Fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
fortitude as never before
frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.
V.
THERE died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization,
Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,
For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.