|
The imagist movement, which flowered in the 1910s and 1920s, was the source of many innovations in American and English poetry in the 20th century. Influential American poet and literary critic Ezra Pound summed up imagism as: “1) Direct treatment of the ‘thing,’ whether subjective or objective; 2) To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation; 3) …to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome.” The following poems, written between 1915 and 1917 by American poet Richard Aldington, English poet Hilda Doolittle, and American poet Amy Lowell, exemplify the imagist style. These three poets expressed emotions and abstract ideas through the use of short lines and crisp language that concentrated on concrete objects.
1915-1917
 |
|
Also on Encarta |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
A Moment's Interlude
One night I wandered alone from my comrades' huts;
The grasshoppers chirped softly
In the warm misty evening;
Bracken fronds beckoned from the darkness
With exquisite frail green fingers;
The tree gods muttered affectionately about me,
And from the distance came the grumble of a kindly train.
I was so happy to be alone,
So full of love for the great speechless earth,
That I could have laid my cheek in the wet grasses
And caressed with my lips the hard sinewy body
Of Earth, the cherishing mistress of bitter lovers.
Field Manœuvres
(Outpost Duty)
The long autumn grass beneath my body
Soaks my clothes in dew;
Where my knees press into the ground
I can feel the damp earth.
In my nostrils is a smell of crushed grass,
Wet pine-cones and bark.
Through the bronze pine trunks
Glitters a silver segment of road.
Interminable squadrons of silver and grey horses
Pace in long ranks the blank fields of heaven.
There is no sound;
The wind hisses gently through the pine-needles;
The flutter of a finch's wings about my head
Is violent as distant thunder,
And the shrill flight of a gnat
Sounds loud and clear.
I am “to fire at the enemy column
After it has passed”—
But my rifle (loaded with “blank”)
Lies untouched before me,
My spirit follows the gliding clouds
And my lips murmur of the mother of beauty
Standing breast-high in golden broom
Among the English pine-woods!
Dawn
The grim dawn lightens thin bleak clouds;
In the hill clefts beyond the flooded meadows
Lies death-pale, death-still mist.
We trudge along wearily,
Heavy with lack of sleep,
Spiritless, yet with pretence of gaiety.
The sun brings crimson to the colourless sky;
Light gleams from brass and steel—
We trudge on wearily—
O God, end this bleak anguish
Soon, soon, with vivid crimson death,
End it in mist-pale sleep!
|
|
Also on MSN |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Pool
Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?
The Garden
I
You are clear,
O rose, cut in rock,
hard as the descent of hail.
I could scrape the colour
from the petal,
like spilt dye from a rock.
If I could break you
I could break a tree.
If I could stir
I could break a tree,
I could break you.
II
O wind,
rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it sideways.
Fruit can not drop
through this thick air:
fruit can not fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.
Cut the heat,
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.
Adonis
I
Each of us like you
has died once,
each of us like you
has passed through drift of wood-leaves,
cracked and bent
and tortured and unbent
in the winter frost—
then burnt into gold points,
lighted afresh,
crisp amber, scales of gold-leaf,
gold turned and re-welded
in the sun-heat.
Each of us like you
has died once,
each of us has crossed an old wood-path
and found the winter leaves
so golden in the sun-fire
that even the live wood-flowers
were dark.
II
Not the gold on the temple-front
where you stand,
is as gold as this,
not the gold that fastens your sandal,
nor the gold reft
through your chiselled locks
is as gold as this last year's leaf,
not all the gold hammered and wrought
and beaten
on your lover's face,
brow and bare breast
is as golden as this.
Each of us like you
has died once,
each of us like you
stands apart, like you
fit to be worshipped.
Pygmalion
I
Shall I let myself be caught
in my own light,
shall I let myself be broken
in my own heat,
or shall I cleft the rock as of old
and break my own fire
with its surface?
Does this fire thwart me
and my craft,
or my work—
does it cloud this light;
which is the god,
which the stone
the god takes for his use?
II
Which am I,
The stone or the power
that lifts the rock from the earth?
Am I the master of this fire,
is this fire my own strength?
Am I the master of this
swirl upon swirl of light—
have I made it as in old times
I made the gods from the rock?
Have I made this fire from myself,
or is this arrogance—
is this fire a god
that seeks me in the dark?
III
I made image upon image for my use,
I made image upon image, for the grace
of Pallas was my flint
and my help was Hephæstos.
I made god upon god
step from the cold rock,
I made the gods less than men
for I was a man and they my work.
And now what is it that has come to pass
for fire has shaken my hand,
my strivings are dust.
IV
Now what is it that has come to pass?
Over my head, fire stands,
my marbles are alert.
Each of the gods, perfect,
cries out from a perfect throat:
you are useless,
no marble can bind me,
no stone suggest.
V
They have melted into the light
and I am desolate,
they have melted,
each from his plinth,
each one departs.
They have gone,
what agony can express my grief?
Each from his marble base
has stepped into the light
and my work is for naught.
VI
Now am I the power
that has made this fire
as of old I made the gods
start from the rocks—
am I the god
or does this fire carve me
for its use?
Venus Transiens
Tell me,
Was Venus more beautiful
Than you are,
When she topped
The crinkled waves,
Drifting shoreward
On her plaited shell?
Was Botticelli's vision
Fairer than mine;
And were the painted rosebuds
He tossed his lady,
Of better worth
Than the words I blow about you
To cover your too great loveliness
As with a gauze
Of misted silver?
For me,
You stand poised
In the blue and buoyant air,
Cinctured by bright winds,
Treading the sunlight.
And the waves which precede you
Ripple and stir
The sands at my feet.
The Travelling Bear
Grass-blades push up between the cobblestones
And catch the sun on their flat sides
Shooting it back,
Gold and emerald,
Into the eyes of passers-by.
And over the cobblestones,
Square-footed and heavy,
Dances the trained bear.
The cobbles cut his feet,
And he has a ring in his nose
Which hurts him;
But stiff he dances,
For the keeper pricks him with a sharp stick,
Under his fur.
Now the crowd gapes and chuckles,
And boys and young women shuffle their feet in time to
the dancing bear.
They see him wobbling
Against a dust of emerald and gold,
And they are greatly delighted.
The legs of the bear shake with fatigue
And his back aches,
And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him.
But still he dances,
Because of the little, pointed stick.
The Emperor’s Garden
Once, in the sultry heats of Midsummer,
An Emperor caused the miniature mountains in his
garden
To be covered with white silk,
That so crowned
They might cool his eyes
With the sparkle of snow.
One Of The “Hundred Views Of Fuji” By Hokusai
Being thirsty,
I filled a cup with water,
And, behold! Fuji-yama lay upon the water
Like a dropped leaf!
Disillusion
A scholar,
Weary of erecting the fragile towers of words,
Went on a pilgrimage to Asama-yama.
And seeing the force of the fire
Spouting from this mighty mountain
Hurled himself into its crater
And perished.
Paper Fishes
The paper carp,
At the end of its long bamboo pole,
Takes the wind into its mouth
And emits it at its tail.
So is man,
Forever swallowing the wind.
Meditation
A wise man,
Watching the stars pass across the sky,
Remarked:
In the upper air the fireflies move more slowly.
Source: Articles from Bibliobase edited by Michael A. Bellesiles. Copyright © 1998 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Appears in
Lowell, Amy Lawrence; Doolittle, Hilda; American Literature: Poetry; Imagism; Poetry
|
Hotmail
Appears in