Selected Poems of Hilda Doolittle

by Hilda Doolittle

  I was angry with his mystery, his mysteries,

  I argued till day-break;

  O, it was late,

  and God will forgive me, my anger,

  but I could not accept it.

  I could not accept from wisdom

  what love taught,

  woman is perfect.

  V

  She is a woman,

  yet beyond woman,

  yet in woman,

  her feet are the delicate pulse of the narcissus bud,

  pushing from earth

  (ah, where is your man-strength?)

  her arms are the waving of the young

  male,

  tentative,

  reaching out

  that first evening

  alone in a forest;

  she is woman,

  her thighs are frail yet strong,

  she leaps from rock to rock

  (it was only a small circle for her dance)

  and the hills dance,

  she conjures the hills;

  “rhododendrons

  awake,”

  her feet

  pulse,

  the rhododendrons

  wake

  there is purple flower

  between her marble, her birch-tree white

  thighs,

  or there is a red flower,

  there is a rose flower

  parted wide,

  as her limbs fling wide in dance

  ecstatic

  Aphrodite,

  there is a frail lavender flower

  hidden in grass;

  O God, what is it,

  this flower

  that in itself had power over the whole earth?

  for she needs no man,

  herself

  is that dart and pulse of the male,

  hands, feet, thighs,

  herself perfect.

  VI

  Let the old man lie in the earth

  (he has troubled men’s thought long enough)

  let the old man die,

  let the old man be of the earth

  he is earth,

  Father,

  O beloved

  you are the earth,

  he is the earth, Saturn, wisdom,

  rock, (O his bones are hard, he is strong, that old man)

  let him create a new earth,

  and from the rocks of this re-birth

  the whole world

  must suffer,

  only we

  who are free,

  may foretell,

  may prophesy,

  he,

  (it is he the old man

  who will bring a new world to birth)

  it is he,

  it is he

  who already has formed a new earth.

  VII

  He will trouble the thoughts of men

  yet for many an aeon,

  they will travel far and wide,

  they will discuss all his written words,

  his pen will be sacred

  they will build a temple

  and keep all his sacred writings safe,

  and men will come

  and men will quarrel

  but he will be safe;

  they will found temples in his name,

  his fame

  will be so great

  that anyone who has known him

  will also be hailed as master,

  seer,

  interpreter;

  only I,

  I will escape.

  VIII

  And it was he himself, he who set me free

  to prophesy,

  he did not say

  “stay,

  my disciple,”

  he did not say,

  “write,

  each word I say is sacred,”

  he did not say, “teach”

  he did not say,

  “heal

  or seal

  documents in my name,”

  no,

  he was rather casual,

  “we won’t argue about that”

  (he said)

  “you are a poet.”

  IX

  So I went forth

  blinded a little with the sort of terrible tears

  that won’t fall;

  I said good-bye

  and saw his old head

  as he turned,

  as he left the room

  leaving me alone

  with all his old trophies,

  the marbles, the vases, the stone Sphynx,

  the old, old jars from Egypt;

  he left me alone with these things

  and his old back was bowed;

  O God,

  those tears didn’t come,

  how could they?

  I went away,

  I said,

  “I won’t have this tyranny

  of an old man

  he is too old,

  I will die,

  if I love him;

  I can not love him

  he is too near

  too precious to God.”

  X

  But one does not forget him

  who makes all things feasible,

  one does not forgive him

  who makes God-in-all

  possible,

  for that is unbearable.

  XI

  Now can I bear even God,

  for a woman’s laughter

  prophesies

  happiness:

  (not man, not men,

  only one, the old man,

  sacred to God);

  no man will be present in those mysteries,

  yet all men will kneel,

  no man will be potent,

  important,

  yet all men will feel

  what it is to be a woman,

  will yearn,

  burn,

  turn from easy pleasure

  to hardship

  of the spirit,

  men will see how long they have been blind,

  poor men

  poor man-kind

  how long

  how long

  this thought of the man-pulse has tricked them,

  has weakened them,

  shall see woman,

  perfect.

  XII

  And they did;

  I was not the only one that cried

  madly,

  madly,

  we were together,

  we were one;

  we were together,

  we were one;

  sun-worshippers,

  we flung

  as one voice

  our cry

  Rhodocleia;

  Rhodocleia,

  near to the sun,

  we did not say

  “pity us,”

  we did not say, “look at us,”

  we cried,

  “O heart of the sun

  rhododendron,

  Rhodocleia,

  we are unworthy your beauty,

  you are near beauty the sun,

  you are that Lord become woman.”

  The Poet

  I

  There were sea-horses and mer-men

  and a flat tide-shelf,

  there was a sand-dune,

  turned moon-ward,

  and a trail of wet weed

  beyond it,

  another of weed,

  burnt another colour,

  and scattered seed-pods

  from the sea-weed;

  there was a singing snail,

  (does a snail sing?)

  a sort of tenuous wail

  that was not the wind

  nor that one gull,

  perched on the half-buried

  keel,

  nor was it any part of translatable sound,

  it might have been, of course,

  another sort of reed-bird,

  further inland;

  inland, there was a pond,

  filled with water-lilies;

&
nbsp; they opened in fresh-water

  but the sea was so near,

  one was afraid some inland tide,

  some sudden squall,

  would sweep up,

  sweep in,

  over the fresh-water pond,

  down the lilies;

  that is why I am afraid;

  I look at you,

  I think of your song,

  I see the long trail of your coming,

  (your nerves are almost gone)

  your song is the wail

  of something intangible

  that I almost

  but not-quite feel.

  II

  But you are my brother,

  it is an odd thing that we meet here;

  there is this year

  and that year,

  my lover,

  your lover,

  there is death

  and the dead past:

  but you were not living at all,

  and I was half-living,

  so where the years blight these others,

  we, who were not of the years,

  have escaped,

  we got nowhere;

  they were all going somewhere;

  I know you now at this moment, when you turn

  and thank me ironically,

  (everything you say is ironical)

  for the flagon I offer,

  (you will have no more white wine);

  you are over-temperate in all things;

  (is inspiration to be tempered?)

  almost, as you pause,

  in reply to some extravagance

  on my part,

  I believe that I have failed,

  because I got out of the husk that was my husk,

  and was butterfly;

  O snail,

  I know that you are singing;

  your husk is a skull,

  your song is an echo,

  your song is infinite as the sea,

  your song is nothing,

  your song is the high-tide that washed away the old

  boat-keel,

  the wet weed,

  the dry weed,

  the seed-pods scattered,

  but not you;

  you are true

  to your self, being true

  to the irony

  of your shell.

  III

  Yes,

  it is dangerous to get out,

  and you shall not fail;

  but it is also

  dangerous to stay in,

  unless one is a snail:

  a butterfly has antennae,

  is moral

  and ironical too.

  IV

  And your shell is a temple,

  I see it at night-fall;

  your small coptic temple

  is left inland,

  in spite of wind,

  not yet buried

  in sand-storm;

  your shell is a temple,

  its windows are amber;

  you smile

  and a candle is set somewhere

  on an altar;

  everyone has heard of the small coptic temple,

  but who knows you,

  who dwell there?

  V

  No,

  I don’t pretend, in a way, to understand,

  nor know you,

  nor even see you;

  I say,

  “I don’t grasp his philosophy,

  and I don’t understand,”

  but I put out a hand, touch a cold door,

  (we have both come from so far);

  I touch something imperishable;

  I think,

  why should he stay there?

  why should he guard a shrine so alone,

  so apart,

  on a path that leads nowhere?

  he is keeping a candle burning in a shrine

  where nobody comes,

  there must be some mystery

  in the air

  about him,

  he couldn’t live alone in the desert,

  without vision to comfort him,

  there must be voices somewhere.

  VI

  I am almost afraid to sit on this stone,

  a little apart,

  (hoping you won’t know I am here)

  I am almost afraid to look up at the windows,

  to watch for that still flame;

  I am almost afraid to speak,

  certainly won’t cry out, “hail,”

  or “farewell” or the things people do shout:

  I am almost afraid to think to myself,

  why,

  he is there.

  A Dead Priestess Speaks

  I

  I was not pure,

  nor brought

  purity to cope

  with the world’s lost hope,

  nor was I insolent;

  I went my own way,

  quiet and still by day,

  advised my neighbour

  on the little crop

  that faded in the sudden heat,

  or brought my seedlings

  where hers fell too late

  to catch the first

  still summer-dew

  or late rain-fall of autumn;

  I never shone

  with glory

  among women,

  and with men,

  I stood apart,

  smiling;

  they thought me good;

  far, far, far

  in the wild-wood,

  they would have found me other

  had they found

  me, whom no man yet found,

  only the forest-god

  of the wet moss,

  of the deep underground,

  or of the dry rock

  parching to the moon:

  at noon,

  I folded hands; when my hands

  lifted up

  a moment from the distaff,

  I spoke of luck

  that got our Arton’s son dictatorship

  in a far city;

  when I left my room,

  it was to tilt a water-jar or fill

  a wine-jar with fresh vintage,

  not too ripe;

  I gave encouragement

  and sought,

  do you like this pattern

  of the helm

  of Jason’s boat (a new one)

  with the olive?

  I smiled,

  I waited,

  I was circumspect;

  O never, never, never write that I

  missed life or loving;

  when the loom

  of the three spinning Sisters stops,

  and she,

  the middle spinner, pauses,

  while the last

  one with the shears,

  cuts off the living thread,

  then They may read

  the pattern

  though you may not,

  I, being dead.

  II

  I laughed not overmuch,

  nor sang nor cried;

  they said, I might have had,

  one year,

  the prize, the archon offered

  for an epitaph

  to a dead soldier;

  when I left my room

  and saw the sunlight

  long upon the grass

  and knew that day was over,

  the night near,

  I scratched the tablet-wax

  with a small broom

  I made of myrtle from the stunted bush

  that grows beside our harbour,

  for I looked over the sea-wall

  to the further sea —

  dark, dark and purple;

  no one could write, after his wine-dark sea,

  an epitaph of glory and of spears;

  I watched the years go on

  like sun on grass,

  and shadow across sunlight,

  till they said,

  O—you remember? trumpets,
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  the fire, the shout, the glory of the war?

  I answered circumspectly,

  claiming no

  virtue

  that helped the wounded

  and no fire

  that sung of battle ended,

  then they said,

  ah she is modest, she is purposeful,

  and nominated for the Herald’s place,

  one

  Delia of Miletus.

  III

  I walked sedately at the head of things,

  who yet had wings they saw not;

  had they seen,

  they would have counted me as one of those

  old women who were young when I was young,

  who wore bright saffron vestments;

  I wore white,

  as fitting the high-priestess;

  ah, at night

  I had my secret thought, my secret way,

  I had my secret song,

  who sang by day,

  the holy metres that the matrons sang,

  sung only by those dedicate to life

  of civic virtue

  and of civic good;

  I knew the poor,

  I knew the hideous death they die,

  when famine lays its bleak hand on the door;

  I knew the rich,

  sated with merriment,

  who yet are sad,

  and I was ever glad,

  and circumspect

  who never knew their life,

  nor poor nor rich,

  nor entered into strife,

  when the new archon spoke of a new war.

  IV

  Ah, there was fire —

  it caught the light

  from the wild-olive when it ceased to yield

  a proper fruit,

  being wild and small and dear

  to me at least,

  who bit the acrid berries;

  I could have eaten ash-leaves

  or wild-oak,

  I could have grubbed for acorns like a boar,

  or like a wild-goat

  bitten into bark,

  I could have pecked the bay-tree

  like a bird,

  winter-green berry

  or the berried branch

  of the wild oleander;

  tasting leaf and root,

  I thought at times of poison,

  hoped that I

  might lie deep in the tangle,

  tasting the hemlock

  blossom,

  and so die;

  but I came home,

  and the last archon saw

  me reach the door, at dawn;

  I did not even care what he might say;

  he might have said,

  Delia of Miletus is a whore,

  she wanders in the open street at night;

  how is it

  I, who do not care, who did not,

  was to him as a mother or a bride,