Safe And Sound

Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)



My name is Nunty Cormorant
And my finance is sound,
I lend you Englishmen hot air
At one and three the pound.

I lend you Englishmen hot air
And I get all the beef
While you stalwart sheep of freedom
Are on the poor relief.

Wot oh! my buxom hearties,
What ain't got work no more
And don't know what bug is a-bitin'
To keep your feelin's sore,

There is blokes in automobiles
And their necks sunk into fur
That keep on gettin' usury
To make 'em cosier.

I read these fellers puts it
Most tidily away
And then lends out their printed slips
To keep the wolf away

From the vaults and combination
Safes in Thread and Needle street.
I wouldn't 'ave the needle
If I had more grub to eat.

Oh the needle is your portion,
My sufferin' fellow men,
Till the King shall take the notion
To own his coin again.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 28, 2023

48 sec read
120

Quick analysis:

Scheme xaBa Bcxc defe dxxb xgdg fhxh ffff
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 773
Words 156
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic of the early modernist movement. more…

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