Ezra Pound: THE SOCIAL ORDER

I
This government official
Whose wife is several years his senior,
Has such a caressing air
When he shakes hands with young ladies.

II
(Pompes Funèbres)
This old lady,
Who was ‘so old she was an atheist’,
Is now surrounded
By six candles and a crucifix,
While the second wife of a nephew
Makes hay with the things in her house.
Her two cats
Go before her into Avernus;
A sort of chloroformed suttee,
And it is to be hoped that their spirits will walk
With their tails up,
And with a plaintive, gentle mewing,
For it is certain that she has left on this earth
No sound
Save a squabble of female connections.

[Ur ‘Lustra’ 1913]