Analysis of Historion

Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)



No man hath dared to write this thing as yet,
And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great
At times pass athrough us,
And we are melted into them, and are not
Save reflexions of their souls.
Thus am I Dante for a space and am
One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and thief,
Or am such holy ones I may not write
Lest blasphemy be writ against my name;
This for an instant and the flame is gone.

'Tis as in midmost us there glows a sphere
Translucent, molten gold, that is the "I"
And into this some form projects itself:
Christus, or John, or eke the Florentine;
And as the clear space is not if a form's
Imposed thereon,
So cease we from all being for the time,
And these, the Masters of the Soul, live on.


Scheme XXXXXXXXXA XXXXXAXX
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111111 011111011111 11111 01110011011 11111 1111010101 101110101 1111011111 1100110111 1111000111 110111101 0101011101 0011111001 11111010 0101111101 0101 1111110101 0101010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 716
Words 143
Sentences 4
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 10, 8
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 30
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 272
Words per stanza (avg) 71
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 25, 2023

43 sec read
94

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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