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“The Fish and the Shadow” by Ezra Pound 🇺🇸🇮🇹 (30 Oct 18851 Nov 1972)
The salmon-trout drifts in the stream,
The soul of the salmon-trout floats over the stream
Like a little wafer of light.
The salmon moves in the sun-shot, bright, shallow sea.
As light as the shadow of the fish that falls through the water,
She came into the large room by the stair.
Yawning a little she came with the sleep still upon her.
“I’m just from bed. The sleep is still in my eyes.
Come. I have had a long dream.”
And I: “That wood?
And two springs have passed!”
“Not so far—no, not so far now.
There is a place—but no one else knows it—
A field in a valley …
qu’ieu sui avinen
leu lo sai.”
She must speak of the time
Of Arnaut de Mareuil, I thought, “qu’ieu sui avinen.”
Light as the shadow of the fish
That falls through the pale green water.