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I was emailed a request for more info about that late Ezra Pound poem I mention in the Little Review of his Poems and Translations.
The poem was written for Sherri Martinelli, one of Pound's acolytes at St. Elizabeth's -- more like a pretty girl that he liked to have around, it appears, as she was apparently a terrible artist, kind of proto new-agey, yet he tried to promote her work by getting monographs published, etc. -- whose brother had died.
Anthony Hecht, yes that Anthony Hecht, wrote that sestinas, because of their repetitions, were particularly suitable for elegies -- as chants, drones, etc. -- which I never quite believed since I've never read one that made me think of death or the afterlife, despite their incantatory qualities.
But this little poem, which seems like a collapsed, even gutted, sestina to me, makes Hecht's observations (which I don't think are original to him, and are probably obvious after a reading of the Provencal) make a lot of sense. And now that I think of it, "The Painter" and Elizabeth Bishop's sestina about the grandmother and the kettle, etc., are elegies of sorts.
This poem first appeared in the Antigonish Review of Winter, 1971-1972 -- anyone know anything about that publication? I haven't googled it yet. The line about "Adah Lee" really strikes me as Poe-like, and it's struck me for a while now that the Poe line and the Pound line -- by which I mean their delight in, and success with, compact, redolent lyrics -- are very close.
Prayer for a Dead Brother
May his soul walk under the larches of Paradise
May his soul walk in the wood there
And Adah Lee come to look after him.
Queen of Heaven receive him.
Mother of the Seven Griefs receive him
Mother of the seven wounds receive him
May he have peace in heart.
By a stream like Castalia, limpid,
that runs level with the green edge of its banks,
Mother of Heaven receive him,
Queen of Heaven receive him,
Mother of the Seven Griefs give him Peace.
Out of the turmoil, Mother of Griefs receive him,
Queen of Heaven receive him.
May the sound of the leaves give him peace,
May the hush of the forest receive him.