from flower to flower —
the hepaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.
The cornel-buds are still white,
but shadows dart
from the cornel-roots —
black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
shadow seeks shadow,
then both leaf
and leaf-shadow are lost.
Sheltered Garden
I have had enough.
I gasp for breath.
Every way ends, every road,
every foot-path leads at last
to the hill-crest —
then you retrace your steps,
or find the same slope on the other side,
precipitate.
I have had enough —
border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,
herbs, sweet-cress.
O for some sharp swish of a branch —
there is no scent of resin
in this place,
no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,
aromatic, astringent —
only border on border of scented pinks.
Have you seen fruit under cover
that wanted light —
pears wadded in cloth,
protected from the frost,
melons, almost ripe,
smothered in straw?
Why not let the pears cling
to the empty branch?
All your coaxing will only make
a bitter fruit —
let them cling, ripen of themselves,
test their own worth,
nipped, shrivelled by the frost,
to fall at last but fair
with a russet coat.
Or the melon —
let it bleach yellow
in the winter light,
even tart to the taste —
it is better to taste of frost —
the exquisite frost —
than of wadding and of dead grass.
For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life.
I want wind to break,
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads, fling them about with dead leaves spread the paths with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince —
leave half-trees, torn, twisted
but showing the fight was valiant.
O to blot out this garden
to forget, to find a new beauty
in some terrible
wind-tortured place.
Sea Poppies
Amber husk
fluted with gold,
fruit on the sand
marked with a rich grain,
treasure
spilled near the shrub-pines
to bleach on the boulders:
your stalk has caught root
among wet pebbles
and drift flung by the sea
and grated shells
and split conch-shells.
Beautiful, wide-spread,
fire upon leaf,
what meadow yields
so fragrant a leaf
as your bright leaf?
Garden
I
You are clear
O rose, cut in rock,
hard as the descent of hail.
I could scrape the colour
from the petals
like spilt dye from a rock.
If I could break you
I could break a tree.
If I could stir
I could break a tree —
I could break you.
II
O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air —
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.
Cut the heat —
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.
Sea Violet
The white violet
is scented on its stalk,
the sea-violet
fragile as agate,
lies fronting all the wind
among the torn shells
on the sand-bank.
The greater blue violets
flutter on the hill,
but who would change for these
who would change for these
one root of the white sort?
Violet
your grasp is frail
on the edge of the sand-hill,
but you catch the light —
frost, a star edges with its fire.
Orchard
I saw the first pear
as it fell —
the honey-seeking, golden-banded,
the yellow swarm
was not more fleet than I,
(spare us from loveliness)
and I fell prostrate
crying:
you have flayed us
with your blossoms,
spare us the beauty
of fruit-trees.
The honey-seeking
paused not,
the air thundered their song,
and I alone was prostrate.
O rough-hewn
god of the orchard,
I bring you an offering —
do you, alone unbeautiful,
son of the god,
spare us from loveliness:
these fallen hazel-nuts,
stripped late of their green sheaths,
grapes, red-purple,
their berries
dripping with wine,
pomegranates already broken,
and shrunken figs
and quinces untouched,
I bring you as offering.
Sea Gods
I
They say there is no hope —
sand — drift — rocks — rubble of the sea —
the broken hulk of a ship,
hung with shreds of rope,
pallid under the cracked pitch.
They say there is no hope
to conjure you no whip of the tongue to anger you —
no hate of words
you must rise to refute.
They say you are twisted by the sea,
you are cut apart
by wave-break upon wave-break,
that you are misshapen by the sharp rocks,
broken by the rasp and after-rasp.
That you are cut, torn, mangled,
torn by the stress and beat,
no stronger than the strips of sand
along your ragged beach.
II
But we bring violets,
great masses — single, sweet,
wood-violets, stream-violets,
violets from a wet marsh.
Violets in clumps from hills,
tufts with earth at the roots,
violets tugged from rocks,
blue violets, moss, cliff, river-violets.
Yellow violets’ gold,
burnt with a rare tint —
violets like red ash
among tufts of grass.
We bring deep-purple
bird-foot violets.
We bring the hyacinth-violet,
sweet, bare, chill to the touch —
and violets whiter than the in-rush
of your own white surf.
III
For you will come,
you will yet haunt
men in ships,
you will trail across the fringe of strait
and circle the jagged rocks.
You will trail across the rocks
and wash them with your salt,
you will curl between sand-hills —
you will thunder along the cliff —
break — retreat — get fresh strength —
gather and pour weight upon the beach.
You will draw back,
and the ripple on the sand-shelf
will be witness of your track.
O privet-white, you will paint
the lintel of wet sand with froth.
You will bring myrrh-bark
and drift laurel-wood from hot coasts!
when you hurl high — high —
we will answer with a shout.
For you will come,
you will come,
you will answer our taut hearts,
you will break the lie of men’s thoughts,
and cherish and shelter us.
Storm
You crash over the trees,
you crack the live branch —
the branch is white,
the green crushed,
each leaf is rent like split wood.
You burden the trees
with black drops,
you swirl and crash —
you have broken off a weighted leaf
in the wind,
it is hurled out,
whirls up and sinks,
a green stone.
Sea Iris
I
Weed, moss-weed,
root tangled in sand,
sea-iris, brittle flower,
one petal like a shell
is broken,
and you print a shadow
like a thin twig.
Fortunate one,
scented and stinging,
rigid myrrh-bud,
camphor-flower,
sweet and salt-you are wind
in our nostrils.
II
Do the murex-fishers
drench you as they pass?
Do your roots drag up colour
from the sand?
Have they slipped gold under you —
rivets of gold?
Band of iris-flowers
above the waves,
you are painted blue,
painted like a fresh prow
stained among the salt weeds.
Hermes of the Ways
The hard sand breaks,
and the grains of it
are clear as wine.
Far off over the leagues of it,
the wind,
playing on the wide shore,
piles little ridges,
and the great waves
break over it.
But more than the many-foamed ways
of the sea,
I know him
of the triple path-ways,
Hermes,
who awaits.
Dubious,
facing three ways,
welcoming wayfarers,
he whom the sea-orchard
shelters from the west,
from the east
weathers sea-wind;
fronts the great dunes.
Wind rushes
over the dunes,
and the coarse, salt-crusted grass
answers.
Heu,
it whips round my ankles!
II
Small is
this white stream,
flowing below ground
from the poplar-shaded hill,
but the water is sweet.
Apples on the small trees
are hard,
too small,
too late ripened
by a desperate sun
that struggles through sea-mist.
The boughs of the trees
are twisted
by many bafflings;
twisted are
the small-leafed boughs.
But the shadow of them
is not the shadow of the mast head
nor of the torn sails.
Hermes, Hermes,
the great sea foamed,
gnashed its teeth about me;
but you have waited,
where sea-grass tangles with
shore-grass.
Pear Tree
Silver dust
lifted from the earth,
higher than my arms reach,
you have mounted,
O silver,
higher than my arms reach
you front us with great mass;
no flower ever opened
so staunch a white leaf,
no flower ever parted silver
from such rare silver;
O white pear,
your flower-tufts
thick on the branch
bring summer and ripe fruits
in their purple hearts.
Oread
Whirl up, sea –
whirl your pointed pines,
splash your great pines
on our rocks,
hurl your green over us,
cover us with your pools of fir.
The Pool
Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?
Moonrise
Will you glimmer on the sea?
will you fling your spear-head
on the shore?
what note shall we pitch?
we have a song,
on the bank we share our arrows;
the loosed string tells our note:
O flight,
bring her swiftly to our song.
She is great,
we measure her by the pine trees.
From The Tribute
1
Squalor spreads its hideous length
through the carts and the asses’ feet,
squalor coils and reopens
and creeps under barrow
and heap of refuse
and the broken sherds
of the market-place —
it lengthens and coils
and uncoils and draws back
and recoils
through the crooked streets.
Squalor blights and makes hideous
our lives—it has smothered
the beat of our songs,
and our hearts are spread out,
flowers—opened but to receive
the wheel of the cart,
the hoof of the ox,
to be trod of the sheep.
Squalor spreads its hideous length
through the carts and the asses’ feet squalor —
has entered and taken our songs
and we haggle and cheat,
praise fabrics worn threadbare,
ring false coin for silver,
offer refuse for meat.
2
While we shouted our wares
with the swindler and beggar,
our cheap stuffs for the best,
while we cheated and haggled and bettered
each low trick
and railed with the rest —
In a trice squalor failed,
even squalor to cheat
for a voice
caught the sky in one sudden note,
spread grass at the horses’ feet,
spread a carpet of scented thyme
and meadow-sweet
till the asses lifted their heads
to the air
with the stifled cattle and sheep.
Ah, squalor was cheated at last
for a bright head flung back,
caught the ash-tree fringe
of the foot-hill,
the violet slope of the hill,
one bright head flung back
stilled the haggling,
one throat bared
/>
and the shouting was still.
Clear, clear —
till our heart’s shell was reft
with the shrill notes,
our old hatreds were healed.
Squalor spreads its hideous length
through the carts and the asses’ feet,
squalor coils and draws back
and recoils
with no voice to rebuke —
for the boys have gone out of the city,
the songs withered black on their lips.
3
And we turn from the market,
the haggling, the beggar, the cheat,
to cry to the gods of the city
in the open space
of the temple —
we enter the temple-space
to cry to the gods and forget
the clamour, the filth.
We turn to the old gods of the city,
of the city once blessed
with daemon and spirit of blitheness
and spirit of mirth,
we cry;
what god with shy laughter,
or with slender winged ankles is left?
What god, what bright spirit for us,
what daemon is left
of the many that crowded the porches
that haunted the streets,
what fair god
with bright sandal and belt?
Though we tried the old turns of the city
and searched the old streets,
though we cried to the gods of the city:
O spirits, turn back,
re-enter the gates of our city —
we met
but one god,
one tall god with a spear-shaft,
one bright god with a lance.
4
They have sent the old gods from the city:
on the temple step,
the people gather to cry for revenge,
to chant their hymns and to praise
the god of the lance.
They have banished the gods
and the half-gods
from the city streets,
they have turned from the god
of the cross roads,
the god of the hearth,
the god of the sunken well
and the fountain source,
they have chosen one,
to him only
they offer paean and chant.
Selected Poems of Hilda Doolittle Page 3