Analysis of In durance

Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)



(1907)
1 am homesick after mine own kind,
Oh I know that there are folk about me, friendly faces,
But I am homesick after mine own kind.

'These sell our pictures'! Oh well,
They reach me not, touch me some edge or that,
But reach me not and all my life's become
One flame, that reaches not beyond
My heart's own hearth,
Or hides among the ashes there for thee.
Thee'? Oh, 'Thee' is who cometh first
Out of mine own soul-kin,
For I am homesick after mine own kind
And ordinary people touch me not.
And I am homesick
After mine own kind that know, and feel
And have some breath for beauty and the arts.

Aye, I am wistful for my kin of the spirit
And have none about me save in the shadows
When come they, surging of power, 'DAEMON,'
'Quasi KALOUN.' S.T. says Beauty is most that, a
'calling to the soul'.
Well then, so call they, the swirlers out of the mist of my soul,
They that come mewards, bearing old magic.

But for all that, I am homesick after mine own kind
And would meet kindred even as I am,
Flesh-shrouded bearing the secret.
'All they that with strange sadness'
Have the earth in mockery, and are kind to all,
My fellows, aye I know the glory
Of th' unbounded ones, but ye, that hide
As I hide most the while
And burst forth to the windows only whiles or whiles
For love, or hope or beauty or for power,
Then smoulder, with the lids half closed
And are untouched by echoes of the world.

Oh ye, my fellows: with the seas between us some be,
Purple and sapphire for the silver shafts
Of sun and spray all shattered at the bows;
And some the hills hold off,
The little hills to east of us, though here we
Have damp and plain to be our shutting in.

And yet my soul sings ‘Up!' and we are one.
Yea thou, and Thou, and THOU, and all my kin
To whom my breast and arms are ever warm,
For that I love ye as the wind the trees
That holds their blossoms and their leaves in cure
And calls the utmost singing from the boughs
That Hhout him, save the aspen, were as dumb
Still shade, and bade no whisper speak the birds of how
'Beyond, beyond, beyond, there lies . . .'


Scheme XAXA XXBXXCXDAXEXX FXGXHHE AXFXXCXXXXXX CXIXCD GDXXXIBXX
Poetic Form
Metre 1 1110111 11111110111010 111110111 11101011 1111111111 1111011101 11110101 1111 1101010111 11111101 111111 111110111 010010111 0111 101111101 0111110001 111101111010 0110111001 1111011010 10111101110 10101 11111011101111 111110110 111111110111 0111010111 11010010 1111110 101010001111 110111010 11101011111 111101 011101010111 11111101110 1110111 0101110101 1111010101111 10010010101 1101110101 010111 01011111111 11011110100 0111110111 1101010111 1111011101 1111110101 1111001101 010110101 1111010011 110111010111 01010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 2,027
Words 411
Sentences 20
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 13, 7, 12, 6, 9
Lines Amount 51
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 262
Words per stanza (avg) 68
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 20, 2023

2:02 min read
254

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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