The Lake Isle

" O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, 
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop, 
With the little bright boxes
piled up neatly upon the shelves
And the loose fragment cavendish
and the shag, 
And the bright Virginia
loose under the bright glass cases, 
And a pair of scales
not too greasy, 
And the votailles dropping in for a word or two in passing, 
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit. 

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, 
Lend me a little tobacco-shop, 
or install me in any profession
Save this damn'd profession of writing, 
where one needs one's brains all the time."

Ezra Loomis Pound, Lustra, 1916.