Selected Poems of Hilda Doolittle

by Hilda Doolittle

red rhododendron.

  4

  Salt, salt the kiss

  of beauty where Love is,

  salt, salt the refrain,

  beat, beat again,

  say again,

  again,

  Beauty,

  our King

  is slain;

  beautiful the hands,

  beautiful the feet,

  the thighs beautiful;

  O is it right,

  is it meet?

  we have dared too long to worship

  an idol,

  to worship drab sack-cloth,

  to worship dead candles;

  light the candles, sing;

  tear down every effigy,

  for none has granted

  him beauty;

  too long,

  too long in the dark,

  the sea howls,

  and the wind,

  a shark rises

  to tear

  teeth, jaws; revels in horrors;

  too long, too long,

  have we propitiated the terror in the sea,

  forgotten its beauty,

  5

  I instil rest;

  there is no faith and no hope

  without sleep;

  the poppy-seed is alive to wake

  you to another world,

  take:

  take the poppy-seed,

  one grain has more worth than fields of ripe grain or

  barley,

  no yield of a thousand and thousand measure,

  baskets piled up and pressed down,

  no measure running over, can yield

  such treasure;

  He said,

  consider the flower of the field;

  did he specify

  blue or red?

  6

  Too long we prayed

  God in the thunder,

  wonderful though he be

  and our father;

  too long, too long in the rain,

  cowering lest he strike again;

  showering peril,

  disclosing our evil;

  He was right, we knew;

  so we fled

  him in rocks,

  cowered from the Power overhead,

  ate grass like the ox;

  we will submit;

  yes, we bled,

  cut ourselves to propitiate

  his wrath;

  for we asked,

  what, what awaits us,

  once dead?

  we never heard the Magician

  we never, never heard what he said.

  7

  We expected some gesture,

  some actor-logic,

  some turn of the head,

  he spoke simply;

  we had followed the priest and the answering word

  of the people;

  to this,

  was no answer;

  we expected some threat or some promise,

  some disclosure,

  we were not as these others;

  but he spoke to the rabble;

  dead,

  dead,

  dead were our ears

  that heard not, yet heard.

  8

  A basket,

  a fish

  or fish net,

  the knot of the cord

  that fastens the boat,

  the oar

  or the rudder,

  the board or the sail-cloth,

  the wind as it lifts sand and grass, the grass

  and the flower in the grass;

  the grape,

  the grape-leaf,

  the half-opened tendril,

  the red grape, the white grape, the blue grape,

  the size of the wood-vine stock,

  its roots in the earth,

  its bark and its contour,

  the shape of the olive,

  the goat,

  the kid and the lamb,

  the sheep,

  the shepherd,

  his wood-pipe,

  his hound,

  the wild-bird,

  the bird untrapped,

  the bird sold in the market;

  the laying of fish on the embers,

  the taste of the fish,

  the feel of the texture of bread,

  the round and the half-loaf,

  the grain of a petal,

  the rain-bow and the rain;

  he named these things simply;

  sat down at our table,

  stood,

  named salt,

  called to a friend;

  he named herbs and simples,

  what garnish?

  a fine taste,

  he called for some ripe wine;

  peeled a plum,

  remembered the brass bowl

  lest he stain

  our host’s towel;

  was courteous,

  not over-righteous;

  why a girl came where he sat,

  flung a rose from a basket,

  and one broke

  a fine box

  of Cyprian ivory,

  (or alabaster)

  a rare scent.

  9

  He liked jewels,

  the fine feel of white pearls;

  he would lift a pearl from a tray,

  flatter an Ethiopian merchant

  on his taste;

  lift crystal from Syria,

  to the light;

  he would see worlds in a crystal

  and while we waited for a camel

  or a fine Roman’s litter

  to crowd past,

  he would tell of the whorl of whorl of light

  that was infinity to be seen in glass,

  or a shell

  or a bead

  or a pearl.

  From Sigil

  XI

  If you take the moon in your hands

  and turn it round

  (heavy, slightly tarnished platter)

  you’re there;

  if you pull dry sea-weed from the sand

  and turn it round

  and wonder at the underside’s bright amber,

  your eyes

  look out as they did here,

  (you don’t remember)

  when my soul turned round,

  perceiving the other-side of everything,

  mullein-leaf, dog-wood leaf, moth-wing

  and dandelion-seed under the ground.

  XII

  Are these ashes in my hand

  or a wand

  to conjure a butterfly

  out of a nest,

  a dragon-fly

  out of a leaf,

  a moon-flower

  from a flower-husk,

  or fire-flies

  from a thicket?

  XIV

  Now let the cycle sweep us here and there,

  we will not struggle,

  somewhere,

  under a forest-ledge,

  a wild white-pear

  will blossom;

  somewhere,

  under an edge of rock,

  a sea will open;

  slice of the tide-shelf

  will show in coral, yourself,

  in conch-shell, myself;

  somewhere,

  over a field-hedge,

  a wild bird

  will lift up wild, wild throat,

  and that song heard,

  will stifle out this note

  and this song note.

  XV

  So if you love me,

  love me everywhere,

  blind to all argument

  or phantasy,

  claim the one signet;

  truly in the sky,

  God marked me to be his,

  scrawled, “I, I, I

  alone can comprehend

  this subtlety”:

  a song is very simple

  or is bound

  with inter-woven complicated sound;

  one undertakes

  the song’s integrity
,

  another all the filament

  wound round

  chord and discord,

  the quarter-note and whole

  run of iambic

  or of coryamb:

  “no one can grasp,”

  (God wrote)

  “nor understand

  the two, insolvent,

  only he and you”;

  shall we two witness

  that his writ is wise

  or shall we rise,

  wing-tip to purple wing,

  create new earth,

  new skies?

  XVI

  But it won’t be that way,

  I’m sane,

  normal again;

  I’m sane,

  normal as when

  we last sat in this room

  with other people who spoke

  pleasant speakable things;

  though

  you lifted your brow

  as a sun-parched branch to the rain,

  and I lifted my soul

  as from the northern gloom,

  an ice-flower to the sun,

  they didn’t know

  how

  my heart woke

  to a range and measure

  of song

  I hadn’t known;

  as yours spoke through your eyes,

  I recalled

  a trivial little joke we had,

  lest the others see

  how the walls stretched out

  to desert and sand,

  the Symplegedes

  and the sea.

  XVII

  Time breaks the barrier,

  we are on a reef,

  wave lengthens on to sand,

  sand keeps wave-beat

  furrowed in its heart,

  so keep print of my hand;

  you are the sea-surge,

  lift me from the land,

  let me be swept out in you,

  let me slake the last,

  last ultimate thirst;

  I am you;

  you are cursed;

  men have cursed God,

  let me be no more man,

  God has cursed man,

  let me go out and sink

  into the ultimate sleep;

  take me,

  let your hand

  gather my throat,

  flower from that land

  we both have loved,

  have lost;

  O wand of ebony, keep away the night,

  O ivory wand,

  bring back the ultimate light

  on Delphic headland;

  take me,

  O ultimate breath,

  O master-lyrist,

  beat my wild heart to death.

  XVIII

  Are we unfathomable night

  with the new moon

  to give it depth

  and carry vision further,

  or are we rather stupid,

  marred with feeling?

  will we gain all things,

  being over-fearful,

  or will we lose the clue,

  miss out the sense

  of all the scrawled script,

  being over-careful?

  is each one’s reticence

  the other’s food,

  or is this mood

  sheer poison to the other?

  how do I know

  what pledge you gave your God,

  how do you know

  who is my Lord

  and Lover?

  XIX

  “I love you,”

  spoken in rhapsodic metre,

  leaves me cold:

  I have a horror

  of finality,

  I would rather guess,

  wonder whether

  either of us

  could for a moment

  endure the other,

  after the first fine flavour

  of irony

  had worn off.

  Calypso

  I

  CALYPSO

  (perceiving the long-wandering Odysseus,

  clambering ashore) Clumsy futility, drown yourself —

  did I ask you to this rock-shelf,

  did I lure you here?

  did I call far and near,

  come, come Odysseus,

  you, you, you alone

  are the unmatchable mate,

  my own?

  sea-nymph may sing;

  I didn’t say anything

  even to the air;

  I was alone,

  bound hair,

  unbound

  and let it fall,

  wound in no fillet nor any pearl

  nor coral,

  only nodded

  peaceful things;

  I asked no wings

  to lift me to mid-heaven,

  to drop me to earth;

  I was alone now

  my beautiful peace has gone;

  did I ask you here?

  O laugh, most intimate waters,

  little cove

  and the answering ripples

  of the spring

  that sends clear water to the salt,

  tell me,

  did I whisper to you ought

  that would work a charm?

  did I, unwittingly,

  invoke some swallow

  to fly low,

  to beat into the hollow

  of those great eyes,

  stupid as an ox,

  wide with surprise?

  did I? did I?

  I am priestess, occult, nymph

  and goddess,

  then what was my fault?

  there must have been fault

  somewhere,

  in the wind,

  in the air,

  some counter-trick

  to mock magic,

  some counter-smile

  some malign goddess

  to smile awry,

  O see, Calypso, poor girl,

  is caught at last;

  O oaf, O ass,

  O any slow, plodding and silly

  animal,

  O man,

  I am amused to think you may

  fall;

  here where I feel

  maiden-hair,

  where I clutch the root of the

  sea-bay,

  where I slide a thin foot along

  a crack,

  you will slip;

  you are heavy,

  great oaf,

  walrus,

  whale, clumsy on land,

  clumsy with your great arms

  with an oar

  at sea;

  you have no wit in the air,

  you are fit only to clamber

  to climb, then to fall;

  then to fall;

  you will slide clumsy

  unto the sand.

  ODYSSEUS On land, I know my way

  as well as by sea,

  she who is light as a bird,

  who shouts wilful words

  back to me,

  shall know,

  Odysseus is at home; witness O land,

  O rock,

  O little fern that is torn here,

  where my hand fondles the rock,

  to set back the torn root,

  O shoot of bay-tree, here

  a hand tore

  a leaf,

  leaf is scattered,

  a shredded branch

  lies below on the shore

  making a letter;

  I lean forward to read-alpha? it

  must be —

  well begin then —

  climb higher —

  what letter did the branch make?

  omega-the end?

  a snake, wound to a cypher,

  nothing, nothing for you

  O land-lover,

  but to follow;

  Odysseus,

  climb higher!

  CALYPSO Idiot;

  did he think he could reach the

  ledge?

 
why, already he leans over the

  edge;

  he is dizzy,

  he will fall —

  shout, shout O sea-gulls,

  large pickings for the wrasse,

  the eel;

  we eat Odysseus, the land-walrus

  to-morrow with parsley

  and bean-sauce —

  eat,

  that’s what I could do;

  eat fruit —

  drink deep from crystal ball

  ODYSSEUS Where has she flown?

  ah, a wild-plum branch has

  caught —

  what?

  the gilt clasp of a sandal?

  vanity for a nymph —

  a nymph is a woman

  CALYPSO

  (below in the cave) What is that?

  ODYSSEUS Ah, I see,

  a narrow track concealed,

  and not too carefully.

  CALYPSO Isn’t he drowned yet?

  ODYSSEUS

  (peers down) There she is under the ground.

  CALYPSO (in the cave) Now I am free;

  no one can find,

  no one can follow —

  ODYSSEUS -but me.

  CALYPSO Vision of obscene force

  what brought you here?

  away —

  evil goddesses of the west,

  I will counter-provoke the

  elements —

  will flood your shallow sands

  with sea-water —

  my father —

  ODYSSEUS Your father?

  CALYPSO A king, a god —

  owner of ocean —

  ODYSSEUS

  (clasps her) All men are fathers,

  kings and gods

  CALYPSO Too soon—O hound —

  beast of an insensitive pack —

  you can not take me that way —

  ODYSSEUS A nymph is a woman.

  CALYPSO No human to weep

  like your Greek —

  ODYSSEUS Laugh then.

  CALYPSO Not at the command of men.

  ODYSSEUS You will do as I say —

  why did you wear sandals like a

  woman,

  if you are not human?

  CALYPSO I am half of the air —

  the rocks hurt my feet —

  ODYSSEUS (drops her) Beware you will moan soon that you are not all woman.

  CALYPSO (her hair spread on his chest. He sleeps) What did he say?

  O you gods—O you gods —

  he shall never get away.

  II

  CALYPSO (on land) O you clouds,

  here is my song;

  man is clumsy and evil,

  a devil.

  O you sand,

  this is my command,

  drown all men in slow breathless

  suffocation then they may understand.

  O you winds,