Analysis of Mr. Nixon
Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)
In the cream gilded cabin of his steam yacht
Mr. Nixon advised me kindly, to advance with fewer
Dangers of delay. 'Consider
Carefully the reviewer.
'I was as poor as you are;
'When I began I got, of course,
'Advance on royalties, fifty at first,' said Mr. Nixon,
'Follow me, and take a column,
'Even if you have to work free.
'Butter reviewers. From fifty to three hundred
'I rose in eighteen months;
'The hardest nut I had to crack
'Was Dr. Dundas.
'I never mentioned a man but with the view
'Of selling my own works.
'The tip's a good one, as for literature
'It gives no man a sinecure.
'And no one knows, at sight, a masterpiece.
'And give up verse, my boy,
'There's nothing in it.'
Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me:
Don't kick against the pricks,
Accept opinion. The 'Nineties' tried your game
And died, there's nothing in it.
X
Beneath the sagging roof
The stylist has taken shelter,
Unpaid, uncelebrated,
At last from the world's welter
Nature receives him;
With a placid and uneducated mistress
He exercises his talents
And the soil meets his distress.
The haven from sophistications and contentions
Leaks through its thatch;
He offers succulent cooking;
The door has a creaking latch.
XI
Conservatrix of Milésien'
Habits of mind and feeling,
Possibly. But in Ealing
With the most bank-clerkly of Englishmen ?
No, 'Milésian' is an exaggeration.
No instinct has survived in her
Older than those her grandmother
Told her would fit her station.
XII
‘Daphne with her thighs in bark
Stretches toward me her leafy hands,'
Subjectively. In the stuffed-satin drawing-room
I await The Lady Valentine's commands,
Knowing my coat has never been
Of precisely the fashion
To stimulate, in her,
A durable passion;
Doubtful, somewhat, of the value
Of well-gowned approbation
Of literary effort,
But never of The Lady Valentine's vocation:
Poetry, her border of ideas,
The edge, uncertain, but a means of blending
With other strata
Where the lower and higher have ending;
A hook to catch the Lady Jane's attention,
A modulation toward the theatre,
Also, in the case of revolution,
A possible friend and comforter.
Conduct, on the other hand, the soul
‘Which the highest cultures have nourished'
To Fleet St. where
Dr. Johnson flourished;
Beside this thoroughfare
The sale of half-hose has
Long since superseded the cultivation
Of Pierian roses.
Scheme | ABBB XCDXE XXXF GXBB XXH EXXH XXBAB XXXX XIJI EDJJD DBBD CXKXK XDBD GDXD FJXJ DBDB XLML MXDX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 00110101111 101001110101110 10101010 1000010 1111111 11011111 011100101111010 10101010 10111111 100101101110 110011 01011111 1110 11010011101 110111 01011111000 111101 011111010 011111 11001 101111011 110101 01010010111 0111001 1 010101 01011010 011 1110110 10011 10100010010 1100110 0011101 010110010 1111 11010010 0110101 1 1111 1011010 1001010 10111110 111110010 11010100 1011010 1011010 1 1010101 100110101 100110101 1010101001 10111101 1010010 11000 010010 10111010 111010 110010 110101010010 1000101010 01010101110 11010 1010010110 01110101010 0010010100 100011010 010010100 011010101 101010110 1111 11010 01110 011111 110100010 1110 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,291 |
Words | 400 |
Sentences | 26 |
Stanzas | 18 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 75 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 102 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:01 min read
- 188 Views
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"Mr. Nixon" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/13301/mr.-nixon>.
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