The Ballad of the Goodly Fere

Of the cross and of the honeycomb

Christ the Redeemer Tiziano Vercelli (“Titian”), 1533-4

I have been meaning to post this poem for some time, which I came across quite by accident some years ago. It is beautiful in the way of a delightful afterthought, not being showy about its business and instead leaving you with an effect that creeps like morning sunlight over everything.

The poem was written by Ezra Pound, who wrote elsewhere that human history was

Desensitisation, desensitisation, and ten thousand years of desensitisation.

To read his remarkably well chosen words is to step outside the muddy stream of time into something bright and honest. He wrote this poem about the Christ of the gospels - a man’s man, a common hero - as a kind of riposte to the misrepresentation of Christ as some kind of milquetoast. ‘Fere’ means something like ‘mate’. The poem could be translated as ‘Jesus - what a legend’. It is a brotherly look at a friend without equal.

This ballad is talk, not a song. It is to be read as if hearing the voi…