Selected Poems of Hilda Doolittle

by Hilda Doolittle

  who was but Delia of Miletus

  run wild;

  he paused, he stood aside;

  I waited for the crowd to mutter filth

  and stone me from the altar,

  but the new archon cried,

  fresh honour to Miletus,

  to Delia of Miletus who has found

  a new brew of bay,

  a new liniment of winter-green

  and ripe oak-leaf

  and berry of wild-olive

  that will stay

  the after-ravages of the plague

  they brought here from Abydos.

  V

  Honour came to me,

  though I sought it not;

  I died at mid-day, sleeping;

  they did not see the reach of purple-wing

  that lifted me out of the little room,

  they did not see drift of the purple-fire

  that turned the spring-fire

  into winter gloom;

  they could not see that Spirit

  in the day,

  that turned the day to ashes,

  though the sun

  shone straight into the window.

  I left the lintel swept,

  the wine in jars,

  placed

  in a row as fitting;

  all was neat,

  no ash was left upon the hearth,

  a few sprays of wild-crocus filled the cup

  with the design, copied from one I wove,

  once long ago,

  of Jason at the helm

  with frame of the wild-olive;

  they cried aloud,

  woe,

  woe,

  aie,

  aie:

  they said,

  Delia,

  Delia,

  the high-priestess

  here, lies dead.

  VI

  Would they have given me that simple white

  pure slab of untouched marble,

  had they known

  had my wide wings sprung wide,

  how my heart cried,

  O, I was never pure nor wise nor good,

  I never made a song that told of war,

  I was not rich,

  I was not very poor,

  I stood unsmiling or I smiled

  to match

  the company about me;

  how was it I,

  who walked so circumspectly, yet was caught

  in the arms of an angry lover,

  who said,

  late,

  late,

  I waited too long for you, Delia,

  I will devour you,

  love you into flame,

  O late

  my love,

  my bride,

  Delia of Miletus.

  VII

  They carved upon the stone

  that I was good,

  they scattered ashes that were only

  ash of bone

  and fibre,

  burnt by wood,

  gathered for ceremonial,

  long instituted by the head of kings,

  the high-priest from Arcadia;

  they spoke of honours,

  the line I drew with weaving,

  the fine thread,

  they told of liniments, I steeped in oil

  to heal the burns of those washed here ashore,

  when that old ship took light from a pine-torch,

  dropped by a drunken sailor:

  they told of how I wandered, risking life,

  in the cool woods

  to cull those herbs,

  in this or that

  sharp crescent-light;

  or the full light

  of moon.

  (Concluding Episode)

  XIX

  [And last but not least, deus ex machina steps forth, intellect, mind, silver, but shining with so luminous a splendour that the boy starts back, confusing this emanation of pure-spirit with that other, his spirit-father, her actual brother of Olympos. “Flee not,” says Pallas Athené, “you flee no enemy in me,” and this most beautiful abstraction of antiquity and of all time, pleads for the great force of the under-mind or the unconscious that so often, on the point of blazing upward into the glory of inspirational creative thought, flares, by a sudden law of compensation, down, marking for tragedy, disharmony, disruption, disintegration, but in the end, O, in the end, if we have patience to wait, she says, if we have penetration and faith and the desire actually to follow all those hidden subterranean forces, how great is our reward. “You flee no enemy in me, but one friendly to you,” says the shining intellect, standing full armed, in a silver that looks gold in the beams, as we may now picture them, of the actual sun, setting over the crags and pinnacles of Parnassus, shedding its subdued glow upon this group, these warm people who yet remain abstraction; a woman, her son; the haunting memory of a wraith-like priestess; the old, old man; the worldly king and general; the choros, so singularly a unit yet breaking occasionally apart, like dancers, to show individual, human Athenian women of the period, to merge once more into a closed circle of abstract joy or sorrow; the boy again in his manifold guises; the woman who is queen and almost goddess, who now in her joy wishes to be nothing but the mother of Ion; the mother, if she but knew it, of a new culture, of an aesthetic drive and concentrated spiritual force, not to be reckoned with, in terms of any then known values; hardly, even to-day, to be estimated at its true worth. For this new culture was content, as no culture had been before, or has since been, frankly with one and but one supreme quality, perfection. Beyond that, below it and before it, there was nothing. The human mind dehumanized itself, in much the same way (if we may imagine group-consciousness so at work) in which shell-fish may work outward to patterns of exquisite variety and unity. The conscious mind of man had achieved kinship with unconscious forces of most subtle definition. Columns wrought with delicate fluting, whorls of capitals, folds of marble garment, the heel of an athlete or the curls of a god or hero, the head-band of a high-priest or a goddess, the elbow-joint of an archer or the lifted knee of one of the horses of the dioscuri, no matter how dissimilar, had yet one fundamental inner force that framed them, projected them, as (we repeat) a certain genus of deep-sea fish may project its shell. Shell, indeed, left high and dry when the black tide of late Rome and the Middle Ages had drawn far, far out, dragging man and man’s aesthetic effort with it. A scattered handful of these creatures or creations is enough to mark, for all time, that high-water mark of human achievement, the welding of strength and delicacy, the valiant yet totally unselfconscious withdrawal of the personality of the artist, who traced on marble, for all time, that thing never to be repeated, faintly to be imitated, at its highest, in the Italian quattrocento, that thing and that thing alone that we mean, when we say, Ionian.

  Let not our hearts break before the beauty of Pallas Athené. No; she makes all things possible for us. The human mind to-day pleads for all; nothing is misplaced that in the end may be illuminated by the inner fire of abstract understanding; hate, love, degradation, humiliation, all, all may be examined, given due proportion and dismissed finally, in the light of the mind’s vision. To-day, again at a turning-point in the history of the world, the mind stands, to plead, to condone, to explain, to clarify, to illuminate; and, in the name of our magnificent heritage of that Hellenic past, each one of us is responsible to that abstract reality; silver and unattainable yet always present, that spirit again stands holding the balance between the past and the future. What now will we make of it?

  And how will we approach it? Not merely through subtle and exquisite preoccupations with shells of its luminous housing; no. Long ago, an olive-tree sprang up. It was sheltered by the Erechtheum. It was worshipped by virgin choros, procession of children, boys and girls; by the older girls; by the wise men of the city; by the heroes about to depart for Marathon; by poet and sculptor, king and visiting prelate. The Persian swept down on the city. We all know of this. We know how not one stone was l
eft upon another, how the old wooden temple that held the ancient dragon and the smiling, ironical, thin and fragile goddess herself, striking it back, fell charred, and buried beneath it, other priceless images, a thin Dioskouros mounting to a horse, a weathered Hermes, a Victory, a stone owl, a plaque, inscribed with legal matter, dating from the days of Solon. The mighty olive-tree had been planted by the very hands of the goddess; it was this gift to men that the gods had placed above the inestimable offering of Poseidon’s white, swift horses. The olive was beautiful and useful, it fed and gave that oil, prized alike for food, for anointing Pythian or Isthmian victor, and for ritualistic sacrifice. The charred stump of the tree stood out now among the ruins of the Acropolis. “When our olive-tree dies,” the Athenians had been taught from childhood, “our city is lost.” Ah lost — lost city!

  Tradition has it that one devotee scrambled back. He was disobedient to the injunction of his goddess, blatantly for this one time, rebellious. Of nothing, too much. Of one thing too much, and for the last time, that one thing (we may imagine his tense thought, valiant above his broken heart-beats) beauty. Not the beauty of the lyre-note plucked at dawn, not the beauty of ecstasy of the red-wine cup and song among the dancers, not the beauty of the virgin-huntress knee-deep in wild lilies, not the beauty of the cloudy outline (God of men, of gods) your father, O Athené, resting on the hill-tops; not snow, nor cloud, nor thunder, nor wind, nor rain, nor the concrete projected reality of stone coping nor architrave, but the beauty of pure thought — and he would fall here — his ankles burnt with smouldering beams from the little, painted ark-temple; his torn sandals were scorched, his heart beating, his last heartbeat. O yes, he can remember them, his friends in the little, lost city. They are strapping their miserable bundles, trying to fasten overcrowded or almost empty boxes, ready to flee the Persian, the Persian—lost—we can share his thought, feel the vibration of his rebellion, of nothing too much—save of this thing. Our love for our lost city.

  There was a new war plague that year with a new name, but his lungs and his knees have come this far to defy her injunction (with his last breath) of nothing too much. And there by the charred stump of the old, of the immemorial olive, we may hear his last cry. Of this thing, too much —

  Did he sleep, our rebellious Athenian? What dawn saw him rise? How was he wakened? By cold wind, no doubt, from the sea, that blue sea that, always its traditional enemy, had now deserted Athens for good. Poseidon had won at last. He might easily have sunk the straits in white foam, or better, summoned an earthquake to fling up rock bulwarks against the invading splendour of those purple galleys. The sea did not listen to the propitiatory prayers of the holy denizens of his city. He sent no storm to wreck the enemies of Greece — and yet he, too, was Greek. Faithless and treacherous to the last, he seemed even to encourage with tender sea-breeze the freightage of these robbers. And what had the west to give them that the east had not? Laden with gold and packed with their beaten goblets, the galleys of Xerxes sought wealth here (O, little, ark-like, painted temple of wisdom!) worth all their fabulous trappings, harness for a million stallion, tent-poles of gold, awnings fringed with silver, gold-pricked tapestries. From Athens’ ancient enemy, the sea, the dawn came.

  Our Athenian’s face was black with ashes, so that what he saw was, no doubt, part of the dishevelled humour of his dreaming. He reached out his frozen hand toward the charred stump of the once sacred olive-tree, to find —

  Close to the root of the blackened, ancient stump, a frail silver shoot was clearly discernible, chiselled as it were, against that blackened wood; incredibly frail, incredibly silver, it reached toward the light. Pallas Athené, then, was not dead. Her spirit spoke quietly, a very simple message.

  How did he get back to his people? What did he say when he finally overtook them, perhaps on the old, sacred Eleusinian highway? What was their answer to the rapture of his so simple, so spiritual message, that told his companions of that hope (from which sprang a later Parthenon). Our old tree is not dead. The Persian has not killed it.

  To-day? Yesterday? Greek time is like all Greek miracles. Years gain no permanence nor impermanence by a line of curious numbers; numerically 1920, 1922 and again (each time, spring) 1932, we touched the stem of a frail sapling, an olive-tree, growing against the egg-shell marble walls of the Erechtheum.

  While one Ionic column stands, stark white and pure on the earth, that name shall live, the power of that goddess shall not have passed, the beauty and the cruelty of her brother shall not be relegated as sheer daemonism or paganism (whatever, God help us, that word has come to mean), while one Ionic column lives to tell of the greatest aesthetic miracle of all-time, welding of beauty and strength, the absolute achievement of physical perfection by the spirit of man, before the world sank into the darkness of late Rome and the Middle Ages, this goddess lives.

  Flee not,

  in me

  you flee no enemy,

  but one friendly to you,

  Pallas.]

  ATHENÉ Flee not,

  in me

  you flee no enemy,

  but one friendly to you,

  Pallas;

  I come from Athens

  in my chariot;

  I am sent

  by Helios

  who fears your reproach;

  that is past;

  I speak

  for Helios;

  he is your father;

  he gave you to another

  so that you might enter

  a noble house;

  but fearing

  (once found out)

  that your mother

  might slay you,

  or you slay your mother,

  he sent me;

  he would keep this secret;

  the Athenians must not know;

  but for you,

  I fastened my steeds,

  to my chariot,

  for you,

  I came

  to reveal

  mystery;

  Kreousa,

  go home;

  place your own child

  on his

  and on your throne.

  ION Pallas,

  great daughter of Zeus,

  how could one question

  you?

  how could one doubt

  your speech?

  what was impossible before,

  is clear,

  I am the son

  of Loxias;

  KREOUSA now you must listen,

  I speak,

  I praise

  whom I blamed,

  Helios;

  he has repaid

  my loss;

  O, doors,

  O, oracular gates,

  you were black before,

  now

  what light,

  what light

  breaks;

  O, handle,

  I touch you,

  I kiss you,

  O, holy door;

  ATHENA the gods’ pace moves slow,

  do they forget?

  no;

  blessed be the man

  who waits

  (nor doubts)

  for the end

  of the intricate

  plan.

  KREOUSA O, child,

  come home —

  ATHENÉ lead on,

  I follow —

  ION what friends,

  what a road —

  KREOUSA lead

  to Athens —

  ATHENÉ and a throne —

  ION for me,

  ION

  CHOROS Apollo,

  son of Zeus,

  son of Leto,

  hail,

  hail,

  O, Apollo;

  and you, too,

  praise the gods,

  that your heart may be free

  and your home;

  if you love the gods,

  you too,

  shall be loved of fate;

  but you evil

  doubter
,

  you shall be

  desolate.

  From The Walls Do Not Fall

  To Bryher

  for Karnak 1923

  from London 1942

  [1]

  An incident here and there,

  and rails gone (for guns)

  from your (and my) old town square:

  mist and mist-grey, no colour,

  still the Luxor bee, chick and hare

  pursue unalterable purpose

  in green, rose-red, lapis;

  they continue to prophesy

  from the stone papyrus:

  there, as here, ruin opens

  the tomb, the temple; enter,

  there as here, there are no doors:

  the shrine lies open to the sky,

  the rain falls, here, there

  sand drifts; eternity endures:

  ruin everywhere, yet as the fallen roof

  leaves the sealed room

  open to the air,

  so, through our desolation,

  thoughts stir, inspiration stalks us

  through gloom:

  unaware, Spirit announces the Presence;

  shivering overtakes us,

  as of old, Samuel:

  trembling at a known street-corner,

  we know not nor are known;

  the Pythian pronounces — we pass on

  to another cellar, to another sliced wall

  where poor utensils show

  like rare objects in a museum;

  Pompeii has nothing to teach us,

  we know crack of volcanic fissure,

  slow flow of terrible lava,

  pressure on heart, lungs, the brain

  about to burst its brittle case

  (what the skull can endure!):

  over us, Apocryphal fire,

  under us, the earth sway, dip of a floor,

  lope of a pavement

  where men roll, drunk

  with a new bewilderment,

  sorcery, bedevilment:

  the bone-frame was made for

  no such shock knit within terror,

  yet the skeleton stood up to it:

  the flesh? it was melted away,

  the heart burnt out, dead ember,

  tendons, muscles shattered, outer husk dismembered,