Ying Zheng, “Among the Auctores” (2019)

Among the Auctores

After Ezra Pound’s “The Return” and Priamo della Quercia’s The Castle of Limbo

Ying Zheng

See, they come; ah, see the curious

Glances, and the confused eyes,

The suspicion in the sight and the anxious

Wandering!

See, they come, one, and by one,

With shock, as half-deadened;

As if the stars should shiver

And sparkle in the night,

     and half stand still;

These were the ‘Wing’d-with-Panic,’

     inviolable.

Muses of the mind’s eyes!

With them a little lyric poet,

     spreading the scent of a new style!

Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!

     He is the strong to harry;

He the earth-bound;

He is the soul of the brisk life.

Stop for a while,

     puzzled the poet’s poets!

(August 2019)