Ezra Pound

... so then naturally This Count Rainuv I speak of (Certainly I did not expect you would ever have heard of him; You are American poets, aren't you? That's rather awful ... I am the only American poet I could ever tolerate ... well, sniff and pass....) Therefore ... well, I knew Rainuv. (My P. G. course at Penn, you'll remember; A little Anglo-Saxon and Basuto, But Provencal, mostly. Most don't go in for that.... You haven't, of course ... What, no Provencal? Well, of course, I know Rather more than you do. That's my specialty. But then—Omnis Gallia est divisa—but no matter. Not fit, perhaps you'd say, that, to be quoted Before ladies.... That's your rather amusing prudishness....) Well, this Rainuv, then, A person with a squint like a flash Of square fishes ... being rather worse than most Of the usual literati Said, being carried off by desire of boasting That he knew all the mid-Victorians Et ab lor bos amics: (He thought it was something to boast of.) We'll say he said he smoked with Tennyson, And—deeper pit—pax vobiscum—went to vespers With Adelaide Anne Procter; helped Bob Browning elope With Elizabeth and her lapdog (said it bit him) Said he was the first man Blake told All about the angels in a pear-tree at Peckham Rye Blake drew them for him, he said; they were grackles, not angels— (Blake's not a mid-Victorian, but you don't know better) So ... we come, being slightly irritated, to facing him down. "... And George Eliot?" we ask lightly. "Roomed with him," nodded Rainuv confidently, "At college!"... Ah, bos amic! bos amic! Rainuv is a king to you.... Three centuries from now (you dead and messy) men whispering insolently (Eeni meeni mini mo...) will boast that their great-grand-uncles Were kicked by me in passing....