Ezra Pound
Collected Shorter Poems (Faber and Faber, 1973)
Lustra
Surgit Fama*
There is a truce among the gods,
Kore** is seen in the North
Skirting the blue-gray sea
In gilded and russet mantle***.
The corn has again it's mother and she, Leuconoe****,
That failed never women,
Fails not the earth now.

The tricksome Hermes is here;
He moves behind me
Eager to catch my words,
Eager to spread them with rumour;
To set upon them his change
Crafty and subtle;
To alter them to his purpose;
But do thou speak true, even to the letter:

‘Once more in Delos, once more is the altar a-quiver*****.
Once more is the chant heard.
Once more are the never abandoned gardens
Full of gossip and old tales.’

*surgit fama - Latin - there is a rumour
**Kore - maiden esp. used of Persephone
***russet mantle - borrowed from "Hamlet" (I, i, 166f):
"But look, the morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon, high eastern hill."
****Leuconoe - the girl appears in Horace (Odes, I, xi, 2).
*****alrar a-quiver - a sign that a deity is approaching (Callumachus, Hymns, II, 1-2)
(c)