On the 100th
year anniversary of its Resurrection as a Phrase
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‘As a metaphor
for radical change, “sea change” had legs,
as they say,
although it certainly took a while to get going.
The first use of
the term in print found (so far) after
Shakespeare's
“The Tempest” in 1610 didn't come
until
Ezra Pound's
poem “Lustra” in 1917.’ The Word Detective
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Shakespeare invented it,
Ezra Pound found it
three hundred and seven
years later, refreshed it,
re-fleshed it allusively
into a poem called “Lustra”:
and so awoke it – blustering
up from its deep ocean
sleep soon to seep into
20th century consciousness
via whatever the requisite
confluence was of what
neurotransmitters would
shuttle it into the regions
of reason from which it would
very soon influence us
to the core. And, oh! – there’s
been ever so very much more.
Sea-change restored, agents
of change are now never a bore.
They're all a heretical alchemy –
the immutable substance
of stuff now proves mutable –
go ahead: spin human hair
into gold. Our unity? Illimitable.
Each one of us? Inimitable.
Nothing’s new nor old.
.
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