Today
I've decided to share a poem that really stood out to me in my college studies.
When I first read it I had to do a double-take on Ezra Pound's name. The poem
has a distinct Asian flavor-as well as a feeling on immense age- like it was
written several hundreds of years ago. I love it because it is so different
from its contemporaries. It reminds me of the fantasy novels I used to read
when I was younger, which spoke so eloquently and convincingly of places that
didn't exist. This is what I really aim for in my own writing, to paint
pictures of worlds that feel both fantastical and completely comfortable to my
readers.
Lament
of the Frontier Guard
Ezra
Pound
By
the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand,
Lonely
from the beginning of time until now!
Trees
fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn.
I
climb the towers and towers
to
watch out the barbarous land:
Desolate
castle, the sky, the wide desert.
There
is no wall left to this village.
Bones
white with a thousand frosts,
High
heaps, covered with trees and grass;
Who
brought this to pass?
Who
has brought the flaming imperial anger?
Who
has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums?
Barbarous
kings.
A
gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn,
A
turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom,
Three
hundred and sixty thousand,
And
sorrow, sorrow like rain.
Sorrow
to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning,
Desolate,
desolate fields,
And
no children of warfare upon them,
No
longer the men for offence and defence.
Ah,
how shall you know the dreary sorrow at the North Gate,
With
Rihoku’s name forgotten,
And
we guardsmen fed to the tigers.
