Unseen Ezra Pound poem sold at auction

An unpublished pastiche sonnet written to friend Isabel Codrington, extolling her ‘rare worth’, fetches £7,500

An unpublished poem by Ezra Pound, in which the American poet extols in an Elizabethan sonnet the “pools” that are the “dearest eyes” of his friend, the British painter Isabel Codrington, has been sold at auction for £7,500.

Pound wrote to Codrington, who was then Isabel Konody, married to the art critic Paul George Konody, in April 1909, telling her: “I can’t find an old poem fit to gratify your modest ambition so I have made a new one which I hope you will grace with acceptance.” The author of modernist classic The Cantos added that “I have made it an Elizabethan sonnet because in that form alone is the thought governed with sufficient elegance of confection to be in fitting harmony with Mrs Konody, whose abject slave I subscribe my self herewith”.