Xenia by Ezra Pound Lyrics

                I.         The Street in Soho

Out of the overhanging grey mist
There came an ugly little man
Carrying beautiful flowers.

                II.

The cool fingers of science delight me;
For they are cool with sympathy,
There is nothing of fever about them.

                III.

Rest me with Chinese colours,
For I think the glass is evil.

                IV.

The wind moves above the wheat --
With a silver crashing,
A thin war of metal.
I have known the golden disc,
I have seen it melting above me.
I have known the stone-bright place,
        The hall of clear colours.

                V.

O glass subtly evil, O confusion of colours!
O light bound and bent in, O soul of the captive,
Why am I warned? Why am I sent away?
Why is your glitter full of curious mistrust?
O glass subtle and cunning, O powdery gold!
O filaments of amber, two-faced iridescence!

                VI.

Go, my songs, seek your praise from the young and the intolerant,
Move among the lovers of perfection alone.
Seek ever to stand in the hard Sophoclean light
And take your wounds from it gladly.

                VII.         Dum Capitolium Scandet

How many will come after me
        singing as well as I sing, none better;
Telling the heart of their truth
        as I have taught them to tell it;
Fruit of my seed,
        O my unnameable children.
Know then that I loved you from afore-time,
Clear speakers, naked in the sun, untrammelled.