ERAT HORA

“Thank you, whatever comes.” And then she turned
And, as the ray of sun on hanging flowers
Fades when the wind hath lifted them aside,
Went swiftly from me. Nay, whatever comes
One hour was sunlit and the most high gods
May not make boast of any better thing
Than to have watched that hour as it passed.

(from Selected Poems, New Directions,
© 1956, 1957, Ezra Pound)

THE TENETS

1. Direct treatment of the “thing,” whether subjective or objective.
   
   
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
   
   
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.

(Appeared in the March 1913 issue of Poetry
under the name F.S. Flint, whom Pound
had earlier dubbed “original or pre-” Imagist.
Later EP claimed that he, Richard Aldington
and Hilda Doolittle had written the tenets.)

More Ezra Pound online:

• There's a good Ezra Pound page put together by Professor Eiichi Hishikawa of the Faculty of Letters, Kobe University, including an outline biography, an extensive bibliography, & these lines from “The Return,” (Personae, © 1926, 1935, 1971 Ezra Pound):

  See, they return, one, and by one,
  With fear, as half-awakened;
  As if the snow should hesitate
  And murmur in the wind,
              and half turn back;
  These were the “Wing'd-with-Awe,”
              Inviolable.

  There it is! The image on your screen, imagism defined by example.
  
  
• At the Modern American Poetry site, there's a growing collection of background information & commentary on Pound's poems, life & career.
  
  
• The BBC's Centurions program names Pound among the 100 most significant artists of the 20th century & offers a biography & comments on the Cantos.
  
  
• From the academy (Penn English department), here is imagism defined from the outside: “a movement in poetry, originating in 1912 and represented by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and others, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.” The page also gives a brief historical commentary & quotes from an Imagist manifesto.