To-Em-Meps ‘The Unmoving Cloud'

Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)



I
The clouds have gathered, and gathered,
and the rain falls and falls,
The eight ply of the heavens
are all folded into one darkness,
And the wide, flat road stretches out.
I stop in my room toward the East, quiet, quiet,
I pat my new cask of wine.
My friends are estranged, or far distant,
I bow my head and stand still.

II
Rain, rain, and the clouds have gathered,
The eight ply of the heavens are darkness,
The flat land is turned into river.
'Wine, wine, here is wine!'
I drink by my eastern window.
I think of talking and man,
And no boat, no carriage, approaches.

III
The trees in my east-looking garden
are bursting out with new twigs,
They try to stir new affection,
And men say the sun and moon keep on moving
because they can't find a soft seat.
The birds flutter to rest in my tree,
and I think I have heard them saying,
'It is not that there are no other men
But we like this fellow the best,
But however we long to speak
He can not know of our sorrow.'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 24, 2023

57 sec read
119

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABXXCXXDXX ABCXDEXX AFXFGXXGXXXE
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 945
Words 194
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 10, 8, 12

Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic of the early modernist movement. more…

All Ezra Pound poems | Ezra Pound Books

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