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A Virginal

By Ezra Pound

No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.
I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness,   
For my surrounding air hath a new lightness;
Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly   
And left me cloaked as with a gauze of æther;   
As with sweet leaves; as with subtle clearness.   
Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness
To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her.   
No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour,   
Soft as spring wind that’s come from birchen bowers.   
Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches,
As winter’s wound with her sleight hand she staunches,   
Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour:
As white their bark, so white this lady’s hours.

n/a

Poet Bio

Black and white photograph of Ezra Pound seated.

Ezra Pound was born in Hailey, Idaho, grew up near Philadelphia, but lived much of his adult life overseas. In his early career he was the influential and a controversial leader of Imagism and Vorticism. He also championed young writers, including H.D., T.S. Eliot, and Robert Frost. Among his best-known works are “In a Station of the Metro,” “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,” and The Cantos, a ranging, lifelong work that expounded his political and economic theories.

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