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| 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.
