Quoting Daniel Pearlman, "Why would he be chastising *himself* in this
stanza about
the true nature and source of Order/beauty, if he has already achieved
illumination on this score via the vision of the prior stanza?"

Illumination seems not to be a sustaained vision, but spezzato
apparently in the Pisan Cantos. Surely the passgae beinning "Ed
ascoltando ..." is about enlightenment (whether EP's or Cunizza's --
there seem other echoes or ways to generalize this passage toward a
generic experience of illumination, shared univertsal here keenly felt
by the poet). So "thou" or "you" would seem to be "man" generically and
the test of sincerity, permanence, durability" is related to the quality
of love: "What thou lovest well ..." as opposed to diffidence ....

I find no basis for this assertion, "his own ordered sensibilities, are
indestructibly preserved." Instead "what though lovest well" has a
floating quality, diaphanous, etc. The act of envisioning, of remaining
receptive is crucial, but far from "idestructable". The order or quality
revealed in a vision ("forma") is beyond the scale of man (not subject
to the individual will), not a form of personal property "his own", but
related to the quality of loving of which the individual is capable.
Certain acts: lack of measure or proportion in the medieval sense
("Master thyself..." quoting Chaucer) add up to vanity. In contrast, to
his immediate past, there was a time when Pound was more receptive to
such presences as those presented in the "Ed ascoltando ..." passage (or
throughout the Pisan Cantos): Blunt is associated with "To have gathered
from the air a live tradition" (he may be thinking of Yeats here as
well).

So "you" includes EP and in that sense there is an element of
self-chastisement, a lesson in humility. Still, the ant which in scale
with nature, can be a teacher, Centaur, and the individual who has know
the scale from vanity to diffidence, can take some pride in what he has
done, remonstrance from when he or she has strayed.

The hard reading that Wei brought up is: who is EP to admonish us. He is
not even recanting, he is instead setting the scales by which he hopes
we will measure him.

Anyone who has seen the film ANTZ will probably have a different reading
of this passage. The ant is a corporation man (in the fascist sense).
Suffice it to say the contents are subject to various ambiguities. The
apprehension of the indestructable form is a matter of eyes.

--
Donald Wellman
http://www.dwc.edu/users/wellman/wellman.htm