(10) Mount Everest
Like any of Pound's Cantos, Canto VII is full of allusions to classic literature and quotes from other languages that make it tough to understand. But what makes this poem especially difficult is the fact that even if you understand every single reference and translate every non-English, passage, it's still extremely hard to make sense of what Pound is trying to say in the first place.
One reason for this difficulty is that Canto VII went through fewer drafts than some of Pound's other Cantos, which means it's a bit rougher and less polished. But also, the poem's resemblance and historical closeness to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" might have made Pound eager to experiment with fragmented, difficult poetry.
For example, let's take a look at lines 5 through 10, which are supposed to give us a nice introduction into the poem, but instead plunge us into a bunch of random images with no apparent connection to each other:
And then the phantom Rome,
marble narrow for seats
"Si pulvis nullus…"
In chatter above the circus, "Nullum excute tamen."
Then: file and candles, e li mestiers ecoutes;
Scene – for the battle only, –but still scene,
Pennons and standards y cavals armatz
What you have here is a quotation in Latin describing how to pick up a hot date at the Roman theater, followed by a description of a sacred medieval religious ritual, followed again by a description of French knights sitting on horses with flags and spears. Even for the greatest Pound scholars in the world, the connection between these lines is not totally clear, and different people are bound to have different takes on what it all really means.
For these reasons, people tend to spend most time talking about the things in Canto VII that we can understand more easily, like Pound's sad search for beauty in an empty house and his dislike of modern men who are only shells of their former selves. In other words, don't get discouraged if you don't understand every little detail in this poem. The truth is that no one knows exactly what every single word of this poem is supposed to mean. So hey, you're not alone.