Middle-Aged by Ezra Pound

A STUDY IN AN EMOTION

"'Tis but a vague, invarious delight.

As gold that rains about some buried king.

As the fine flakes,

When tourists frolicking

Stamp on his roof or in the glazing light

Try photographs, wolf down their ale and cakes

And start to inspect some further pyramid;

As the fine dust, in the hid cell beneath

Their transitory step and merriment,

Drifts through the air, and the sarcophagus

Gains yet another crust

Of useless riches for the occupant,

So I, the fires that lit once dreams

Now over and spent,

Lie dead within four walls

And so now love

Rains down and so enriches some stiff case,

And strews a mind with precious metaphors,

And so the space

Of my still consciousness

Is full of gilded snow,

The which, no cat has eyes enough

To see the brightness of."

Cat Eyes painting by Jody Domingue