from Canto CXV

written by


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The scientists are in terror
  and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
  rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
  the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
  how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
  but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
    where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
   neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
  doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
    where the dead walked
      and the living were made of cardboard.

© Ezra Pound