ABSTRACT
Mr. Ezra Pound has lost none of his magic since the coming of the queer little paper book from Italy that was his first message to 'this grey folk' of England. There are in Personae some of the poems that delighted us in A Lume Spento. There is 'La Fraisne,' the story of the man in the Ash Wood of Malvern, whom men call mad because he has 'put aside all folly and all grief,' and finds his bride, the dog-wood tree, and the pool of the wood 'sweeter than the love of women' which has driven him mad. This poem has a haunting atmosphere of beauty. 'Cino,' again, is extraordinarily full of charm. Its metre sings, and the suggestion of every word, placed as only a poet can place it, goes far beyond the thing said. The cadences sing of 'melodies unheard,' musical though they are in themselves. It is something, after all, intangible and indescribable that makes the real poetry. Criticism and praise alike give no idea of it. Everyone who pretends to know it when he sees it should read and keep this book. Its spirit is the High Romance, and it is never sickly and never monotonous, but the real work of a real 'Poet that doth drink of life, As lesser men drink wine.'
