Tim Romano wrote:

>         To have, with decency, knocked
>         That a Blunt should open
>
> How about an allusion to _non dulce non et decor_  ?

It would make perfect sense. At least once the suggestion is made it is
irresistible.

I think Pound sneers at the mere placing of the vulgar against the refined --

                            "Beer-bottle on the statue's pediment!
            "That, Fritz, is the era, to-day against the past,
            "Contemporary." (Canto VII)

But I don't think he sneers at the opposite, the placement of refinement in
multiple senses against savagery. Calling on Blunt is both on Blunt's part and
the caller's an act of decency (in all the senses so far mentioned in this
thread) to set against the horrors of WW1. And leaving aside Pound's
differing political judgments of the two wars, the image still holds when Pound
at Pisa recalls it.

Carrol Cox