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EZRA POUND 61
dragons, which contained Virginia cigarettes. He also provided a
jug of claret and siphons of soda water for his visitors. 8
It was the custom of Yeats to let in the first comer, although his
landlady, Mrs. Old, sometimes performed this function. After that,
the last arrival was expected to answer the bell. In this sedate
atmosphere, Pound reigned for some months. Douglas Goldring
somewhat irreverently describes the scene in South Lodge:
"I shall never forget my surprise, when Ezra took me for the
first time to one of Yeats' 'Mondays,' at the way in which he
dominated the room, distributed Yeats' cigarettes and Chianti, and
laid down the law about poetry. Poor golden-haired Sturge Moore,
who sat in a corner with a large musical instrument by his side (on
which he was never given a chance of performing) endeavoured to
join the discussion on prosody, a subject on which he believed himself
not entirely ignorant, but Ezra promptly reduced him to a glum
silence. My own emotions on this particular evening, since I did
not possess Ezra's transatlantic brio, were an equal blend of reverence
and a desire to giggle. I was sitting next to Yeats on a settle
when a young Indian woman in a sari came and squatted at his feet,
and asked him to sing 'Innisfree,' saying she was certain that he had
composed it to an Irish air. Yeats was anxious to comply with the
request, unfortunately, like so many poets, was completely unmusical,
indeed almost tone-deaf. He compromised by a sort of
dirge-like incantation calculated to send any unhappy giggler into
hysterics. I bore it as long as I could, but at last the back of the
settle began to shake, and I received the impact of one of the poet's
nasty glances from behind his pince-nez. Miraculously, I recovered,
but it was an awful experience." 9
At this time, Yeats was undergoing an intensive graduate course
with Ezra, which was modified by the presence of a poet of the old
school, T. Sturge Moore. Although Yeats appreciated the benefits
of the association, the strain sometimes was too much for him, as
evidenced by a letter to Lady Gregory dated January 3, 1913:
"My digestion has got rather queer again—a result I think of
sitting up late with Ezra and Sturge Moore and some light wine
while the talk ran. However, the criticism I got from them has given
me new life and I have made that Tara poem a new thing and am
writing with new confidence having got Milton off my back. Ezra