“The River-Merchant's Wife” Summary

“The River-Merchant's Wife” Themes

• 

  Love and Longing

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The River-Merchant's Wife”

• Lines 1-6

  While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
  I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
  You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
  You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
  And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:
  Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-10

  At fourteen I married My Lord you.
  I never laughed, being bashful.
  Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
  Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-14

  At fifteen I stopped scowling,
  I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
  Forever and forever, and forever.
  Why should I climb the look out?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 15-18

  At sixteen you departed
  You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
  And you have been gone five months.
  The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 19-21

  You dragged your feet when you went out.
  By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
  Too deep to clear them away!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 22-26

  The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
  The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
  Over the grass in the West garden;
  They hurt me.
  I grow older.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 27-30

  If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
  Please let me know beforehand,
  And I will come out to meet you
  As far as Chō-fū-Sa.

  

  

  

  

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“The River-Merchant's Wife” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Apostrophe

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Pathetic Fallacy

  

  

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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“The River-Merchant's Wife” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
• Bashful
• Scowling
• Swirling eddies

• • See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The River-Merchant's Wife”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“The River-Merchant's Wife” Speaker

“The River-Merchant's Wife” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “The River-Merchant's Wife”

More “The River-Merchant's Wife” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Life of Li Bai — Learn more about Li Bai, the Chinese poet whose work Pound translates here.

  • Pound's Biography — Learn about Pound's life and work at the Poetry Foundation.

  • The Poem Aloud — Listen to the actor Jodie Foster performing the poem.

  • Pound's "Translations" — Read about the complex history of Pound's translations of Chinese poetry (which many critics see more as new works inspired by the source material than attempts at faithful translation).

  • Pound's Difficult Legacy — Read a short overview of Pound's life that discusses his fascist politics, his antisemitism, and his years in a mental hospital.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Ezra Pound

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  • Portrait d'une Femme