Author: Don

Crimson clash rejoicing

It’s February 2, when bloggers — a few, anyway — post a favorite poem, if they remember to. Here’s a sestina by Ezra Pound.

Sestina: Altaforte

Loquitur: En Bertrans de Born.
Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a
stirrer-up of strife.
Eccovi!
Judge ye!
Have I dug him up again?
The scene in at his castle, Altaforte. “Papiols” is his jongleur.
“The Leopard,” the device of Richard (Cúur de Lion).

I

Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let’s to music!
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.

II

In hot summer have I great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth’s foul peace,
And the lightnings from black heav’n flash crimson,
And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
And through all the riven skies God’s swords clash.

III

Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!
Better one hour’s stour than a year’s peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
Bah! there’s no wine like the blood’s crimson!

IV

And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
And I watch his spears through the dark clash
And it fills all my heart with rejoicing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music
When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His lone might ‘gainst all darkness opposing.

V

The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
But is fit only to rot in womanish peace
Far from where worth’s won and the swords clash
For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music.

VI

Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
There’s no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle’s rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our charges ‘gainst “The Leopard’s” rush clash.
May God damn for ever all who cry “Peace!”

VII

And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
Hell blot black for always the thought “Peace!”

Left to right: Virgil, Dante, Bertie’s head, Bertie.

Dated post

For those who reuse calendars: those from 2014, 2003, 1997 and 1986 will work for 2025. Calendars from 2008 and 1980 will work from March on. Calendars from 2020 and 1992 will only work for January and February and are probably not worth digging out.

Memo to Arlo Guthrie

The dump still closes on Thanksgiving.

A thousand years ago, I persuaded my homeroom at high school #2 to nominate “Alice’s Restaurant” for our class song. It inevitably lost out to “The Impossible Dream,” which was the song every class picked during that historical period, but it’s pleasant to imagine my classmates sashaying into the auditorium singing “You can get anything you want / at Alice’s Restaurant, excepting Alice.”

Alice Brock, who ran the restaurant in the song (which restaurant, as Guthrie notes in the song, was not actually named “Alice’s Restaurant”) died a week ago. It sounds like she was an interesting person, though we probably would have agreed on very little.