Piero di Cosimo, "Portrait de femme dit de Simonetta Vespucci" (c. 1480)

How have I labored?

How have I not labored?

To bring her soul to birth,

To give theses elements a name and a centre!

She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.

She has no name, and no place.

How have I laboured to bring her soul into separation;

To give her a name and her being!

Surely you are bound and entwined,

You are mingled with the elements unborn;

I have loved a stream and a shadow.

I beseech you enter your life.

I beseech you learn to say "I"

When I question you:

For you are no part, but a whole;

No portion, but a being.

Ezra Pound (1885-1972). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Vol. II, No. I, April, 1913. Chicago: Harriet Monroe.