Ezra Pound Hard Core

Yet you ask on what account I write so many love-lyrics
And whence this soft book comes into my mouth.
Neither Calliope nor Apollo sung hese things into my ear,
My genius is no more than a girl.

Me tis vlefarides kai ta aftia na me xypnane, gia tin hari tou anti-here,@ the gentler hour of an ultimate day, me characteres askew kai to feggari she-don prominima tou apwn fthinopourou, psahnw tin skia mou sto krasi kai sto idrwmeno maxilari. O kairos -agglomathis gar, me (x)filenades vories- den afinei kan tin exatmisi tou erwta na lavei Choran. Ehei aggaziarei apo prin tin ygrasia. Kai den tha hionisei, toulahiston mehri ton Fevrouario. Etsi Baudrilliard-ika, me tis lexeis therapevw tis simatodotimenes ekfores twn matiwn kai twn daktylwn. Les kai mporw / mporw les;

Me happy, night full of brightness;
Oh couch made happy by my long delectations;
How many words talked out with abundant candles; Struggles when the lights were taken away;
Now with bared breasts she wrestled against me,
Tunic spread in delay;
And she then opening my eyelids fallen in sleep,
Her lips upon them; and it was her mouth saying:
Sluggard!

In how many varied embraces, our changing arms,
Her kisses, how many, lingering on my lips.
"Turn not Venus into a blined motion
Eyes are the guides of love,
Paris took Helen naked coming from the bed of Menelaus,
Endymion's naked body, bright bait for Diana,"
-such atleast is the story.

While our fates twine together, state we our eyes with love;
For long night comes upon you
and a day when no day returns.
Let the gods lay chains upon us
so that no day shall unbind them.

Fool who would set a term to love's madness
For the sun shall drive with black horses,
earth shall bring wheat from barley,
The flood shall move toward the fountain
Ere love know moderations,
The fish shall swim in dry streams.
No, now while it may be, let not the fruit of life cease.

Dry wreaths drop their petals,
their stalks are woven in baskets,
To-day we take the great breath of lovers,
to-morrow fate shuts us in.

Though you give all your kisses
you give but few.

Nor can I shift my pains to other,
Hers will I be dead,
If she confer such nights upon me,
long is my life, long in years,
If she give me many,
God am I for the time.

Ezra Pound, from Homage to Sextus Propertius, 1917