The Needle

Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)



Come, or the stellar tide will slip away.
Eastward avoid the hour of its decline,
Now! for the needle trembles in my soul!

Here have we had the vantage, the good hour.
Here we have had our day, your day and mine.
Come now, before this power
That bears us up, shall turn against the pole.
Mock not the flood of stars, the thing's to be.
O Love, come now, this land turns evil slowly.
The waves bore in, soon will they bear away.

The treasure is ours, make we fast land with it.
Move we and take the tide, with its next favour,
Abide
Under some neutral force
Until this course turneth aside.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 12, 2023

35 sec read
219

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABC DBDCEEA XDFXF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 583
Words 116
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 3, 7, 5

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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