MY soul is an Infanta robed in state,
Whose exile is reflected evermore
In mighty mirrors of the days of yore,
In an Escurial left desolate.
And at the foot of her armed throne there gleam
The eyes of two Scotch greyhounds proud and thin
That chase symbolic beasts at pleasure in
The forests of enchantment and of dream.
Her favourite page, called Once-upon-a-Time,
With bated breath reads tales of Fairyland,
Whilst motionless, a tulip in her hand,
She listens to a mystic, dying chime ...
The park around her runs its leafy wheel
with avenues that branch from balustrades;
And, grave, she conjures up illustrious shades,
That through the dizzy dusk upon her steal.
Meek is she, unastonished, and resigned,
Knowing what bitter thing it is to live,
Dowered with disdain indeed, yet sensitive
To pity as the wave is to the wind.
Meek and resigned even in her sobs is she,
And only wroth when she evokes some vast
Armada foundered on the lies that last,
And all great spirits swallowed by the sea.
Too heavy purple eves bow down her pride,
And Van Dyck portraits in black velvet on
Old gold of walls, their fingers long and wan,
And their grand airs from empires that have died.
Ancient mirages all her wrongs redress,
And in the visions that she seeks in dream
Suddenly--sun or glory--some bright beam
Kindles the rubies of her haughtiness.
But with a sad smile she these fevers stills;
Fearing the multitude's loud, iron strife,
She harks afar, as does the sea, to life,
The while her eyes a deepening secret fills.
No shudder stirs the opal of her eyes
Where the veiled spirit dwells of Cities dead;
She walks through noiseless halls nor turns her head,
And to unspoken words her voice replies.
As might a lorn ship in the harbour wait,
Pale stands she, with a tulip in her fingers;
Glassed in the mirrors of old time she lingers,
In an Escurial left desolate.
My soul is an Infanta robed in state.
The line in the epigraph taken from Samain's poem speaks of being dressed up for an occasion, dressed for others to see. I am interested in how this epigraph affects the reading of Pound's "Garden."
The image of her as silk makes her seem delicate and frail in the first stanza, and Pound wastes no time telling his reader that she is dying.
The second stanza echoes Samain's poem with the use of the word infant. He comments on the strength of the poor, which implies a weakening of the aristocracy.
In the final stanza his use of the word "breeding" and his line about her excessive boredom ask the reader again to wonder what Pound is saying about aristocracy and its changing role in society.
What is it about Samain's poem that Pound found so relevant to the argument he is making about aristocracy? What connections can be drawn between the two poems that show us why he chose this epigraph?
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