POUND FOR POUND

THE GARRET

Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are.
Come, my friend,and remember
that the rich have butlers and no friends,
And we have friends and no butlers.
Come, let us pity the married and unmarried.

Dawn enters with little feet
like a gilded Pavlova,
And I am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better
Than this hour of clear coolness,
the hour of waking together.

THE BEAUTIFUL TOILET

Blue,blue is the grass about the river
And the willows have overfilled the close garden.
And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her youth,
White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door.
Slender, she puts forth a slender hand;

And she was a courtezan in the old days,
And she has married a sot,
Who now goes drunkenly out
And leaves her too much alone.

-E. Pound