ยท
Bid the warbling Nine retire:
Venus, string thy servant’s lyre:
Love shall be my endless theme:
Pleasure shall triumph over fame:
And when these maxims I decline,
Apollo, may thy fate be mine:
May I grasp at empty praise;
And the lose the nymph, to gain the bays.
“If my praise her grace effaces,
Then ’tis not my heart that showeth,
But the skilless tongue that soweth
Words unworthy of her graces.
Tongue, that hath me so betrayed,
Were my heart but here displayed,
Then were sung her fitting praises.”
Ezra Pound | “Canzon: To Be Sung Beneath a Window”