Let ’em censure: what care I?
The herd of critic I defy.
Let the wretches know, I write
Regardless of their grace, or spite.
No, no: the fair, the gay, the young
Govern the numbers of my song.
All that they approve is sweet:
And all is sense, that they repeat.
“Ah! red-leafed time hath driven out the rose
And crimson dew is fallen on the leaf
Ere ever yet the cold white wheat be sown
That hideth all earth’s green and sere and red;
The Moon-flower’s fallen and the branch is bare,
Holding no honey for the starry bees;
The Maiden turns to her dark lord’s demesne.”
Ezra Pound | “Canzon: The Yearly Slain”