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EZRA POUND 39
Inevitably, he came to the attention of Punch, and was treated to
the following example of British humor:
"Mr. Welkin Mark (exactly opposite Long Jane's) begs to
announce that he has secured for the English market the palpitating
works of the new Montana (U.S.A.) poet, Mr. Ezekiel Ton,
who is the most remarkable thing in poetry since Robert Browning.
Mr. Ton, who has left America to reside for a while in London and
impress his personality on English editors, publishers and readers,
is by far the newest poet going, whatever other advertisements may
say. He has succeeded, where all others have failed, in evolving
a blend of the imagery of the unfettered West, the vocabulary of
Wardour Street, and the sinister abandon of Borgiac Italy." 17
In October, 1909, on his twenty-fourth birthday, Pound achieved
a sudden success with the publication of his poem "The Ballad
of the Goodly Fere," in The English Review. An account of the
last hours of Christ, the poem was quoted everywhere. It threatened
to provide him with an easy method of composition that would
hamper his development. He later remarked, "After the success
of the 'Goodly Fere', all I had to do was to write a ballad about
each of the disciples, and I would have been set for life." 18
But Pound had no intention of taking such an easy path. "The
Ballad" did bring him to the attention of his native land, and The
Literary Digest, which was the Time Magazine of its era, reprinted
the poem, with an introductory note about its author, "Mr. Eyra
Pound," on October 30, 1909.
The following month, in the issue of November 27, 1909, the
Digest ran a picture of a still-beardless Pound, probably a college
photograph, and quoted The Bookman, ". . . he has written
and burnt two novels and 300 sonnets." These were the works that
undoubtedly would have won him fame and fortune among his
fellow countrymen. He was correctly named as "Ezra Pound" in
this issue, someone having called the editor's attention to the previous
error. Twenty years later, The Literary Digest boasted of having
been the first American publication to print Pound's work.
By coincidence, this same issue of The Literary Digest carried
a note about Senator Nelson Aldrich's tour of the West to gain
support for a new banking plan, the Aldrich Plan, which would
give the nation a central bank. When this plan was enacted as the