I'm aware of little that has been written about the influence of
Swinburne on Pound.  In fact, off  the top of my head, I can't think of
anything at all, though I'm sure there have been at least references.
But that Swinburne had such an influence, and that it was in fact a
major influence, seems to me a simple fact.  Additionally, that Pound,
who wanted to know more about poetry than any man living, would have
known Saintsbury's history of prosody, seems more than a little likely.
I don't know the publishing history of the work, but the earliest
copyright in my volumes is 1908.

So, I've posted the 19 pages devoted by Sainstbury to Swinburne in the
"History", at
http://www.dirk-johnson.com/prosody/saintsbury_swinburne.pdf (I was
already scanning Appendix V this morning, so I figured, "why not?".

After Swinburne, what was there left for Pound to do prosodically but to
break the pentameter, set verse free of schematic restraints, and
incorporate other languages?

That Swinburne, for his time and in the then-current mode, subsumed
within his verse the entire mainstream development of prosody in English
verse must have been keenly felt by the young Pound (much in the way
many 20th century poets were aware of Pound overarching
accomplishment).  What was left but to go in another direction entirely
-- and while going in that direction to both take into account the
multiplicity of prosodic devices employed by Swinburne (et al of course)
and expand diction while focussing the attention to the senses and their
objects, away from the supremely generalized approach of Swinburne?

Even so, Pound very closely followed the critical lead of Swinburne,
especially re the fusion of church and aesthetics imposed by the fetid
Buchanan and Co., but also in other significant ways.  Swinburne's
"Under the Microscope", e.g., is a direct and very clear antecedent of
Pound's critical approach, both in it's stylistic manner and it's
attitudes toward the arts and his contemporaries.

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