Four Lines by Ezra Pound

The New Zealand poet settled to his coffee at the Astoria in Lambton Quay
kindly hunched against the bitter wind at an outside table because although
he hated us when smokers ruled the world he pities us these days of leprosy.

He spoke of our late mutual friend from Lecce who, whilst living in Venice,
paid his respects to Ezra Pound on occasion—as one would—the poet sunk
below the waterline into the clarity of incommunicado and monkish accidie.

One day the poet raised his head and spoke—four lines—from out the deep
of his mistake—four good strong tough lines that anyone could remember
and the man from Lecce did and they became the punchline for a story.

But but—I said. I have read those lines, unattributed, in a book of verse.
Four good, strong, tough lines that are worth remembering, and so I did.
Such Antipodean chutzpah to plagiarise Pound, his brilliant rottenness.