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EZRA POUND 367
"In the 13th century Castel Fontana was built on old Roman
ground. Shortly after the second world war Boris de Rachewiltz
bought it. Of all the old castles in Sud-tyrol none is more wrapped
in old tales. People are whispering of great riches buried in the
ground and known only to the devil. I was also told, by the local
inhabitants, that one, at night, can see burning fires on the battlements
and a gigantic, golden calf close to the castle. Those legends
don't frighten Ezra Pound. He is a sporty and agile man of medium
height. His hair is silver white, his eyes steel grey, sometimes
flashing with a piercing fire. When walking he sometimes favours a
wooden cane, but in spite of his seventy-three years and the hardships
he has met with, he seems far from tired or finished, and it's
difficult not to be excited by his nervous vivacity and rapid changes
of moods . . . Pound speaks an Italian impressive by the amount
of words he knows and the outstanding linguistic imagination.
Sometimes he pauses, for a short while, and one who is not used
to his way of talking may easily think he's lost the thread. But
then, fast as an arrow, comes the absolutely perfect and precise
word."
In the spring of 1959, Ezra wrote to me that the altitude at the
castle bothered him, and that he was returning to Rapallo. There
he has remained, annoyed by the osteo-arthritic condition of his
neck vertebrae, but even more annoyed by the steadfast refusal
of his countrymen to "Think, dammit!"
Some years ago, Rex Lampman contributed to Nine magazine an
epitaph for Ezra, which delighted him. It read,
Here lies the Idaho Kid,
the only time he ever did.
Rex later sent me a longer version,
E.P.
Here lies noisy Ezra Pound,
Mute as Adam's eldest hound.
Here he lies, the Idaho Kid,
The second* time he ever did.
*First was when E.P. told T.S.
Eliot he thought Eliot could
become a great poet.