The Basis for a New Painting
Truly these Imagists are enchanting! The following examples are selected from the anthology published by The Glebe:
Fan-Piece for Her Imperial Lord
O fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside.
Ezra Pound.
In A Garden
Gushing from the mouths of stone men
To spread at ease under the sky
In granite-lipped basins,
Where iris dabble their feet
And rustle to a passing wind,
The water fills the garden with its rushing,
In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns.
Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone,
Where trickle and splash the fountains,
Marble fountains, yellowed with much water.
Splashing down moss-tarnished steps
It falls, the water;
And the air is throbbing with it;
With its gurgling and running;
With its leaping, and deep, cool murmur.
And I wished for night and you.
I wanted to see you in the swimming-pool,
White and shining in the silver-flecked water.
While the moon rode over the garden
High in the arch of night,
And the scent of the lilacs was heavy with stillness.
Night and the water, and you in your whiteness, bathing!
Amy Lowell.
Au Vieux Jardin
I have sat here happy in the gardens,
Watching the still pool and the reeds
And the dark clouds
Which the wind of the upper air
Tore like the green leafy bough
Of the divers-hued trees of late summer;
But though I greatly delight
In these and the water lilies,
That which sets me nighest to weeping
Is the rose and white colour of the smooth flag-stones,
And the pale yellow grasses
Among them.
Richard Aldington.
Ts’ai Chi’h
The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange coloured rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.
Ezra Pound.
Liu Ch’e
The rustling of the silk is discontinued,
Dust drifts over the courtyard,
There is no sound of footfall, and the leaves
Scurry into heaps and lie still,
And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath them.
A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.
Ezra Pound.
NEW YORK LETTER
GEORGE SOULE