China and the West

Pound, Ezra. Des Imagistes [ID D29162].
[Enthält] :
Pound, Ezra. After Ch'u Yuan.
I will get me to the wood
Where the gods walk garlanded in wisteria,
By the silver-blue flood move others with ivory cars
There come forth many maidens
To gather grapes for the leopards, my friend
For there are leopards drawing the cars.
I will walk in the glade,
I will come out of the new thicket
And accost the procession of maidens.
Pound, Ezra. Liu Ch'e
The rustling of the silk is discontinued,
Dust drifts over the courtyard,
There is no sound of footfall, and the leaves
Scurry into heaps and lie still,
And she the rejoice of the heart is beneath them :
A wet leaf that clings to the thereshold.
Pound, Ezra. Fan-Piece, for her Imperial Lord
O fan of white silk,
Clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You are also laid aside.
Ban, Jieyu. Song of regret, a rewrite of a Chinese translation of Herbert A. Giles.
Commenting on the first Imagist anthology, Charles Norman observes that "Two things strike a reader at once – the many poems, including four of Pound's six, which are adapted from the Chinese or formed on Chinese models, and many, including Pound's other two, which are influenced by Greek art, thought and poetry". The Greek-Chinese combination reflects what Pound was thinking at the moment when he edited Des Imagists. While reading Giles' translation of classical Chinese poetry he was struck by an affinity between the two ancient traditions.