under, till marah-mar
are melted, fuse and join
and change and alter,
mer, mere, mére, mater, Maia, Mary,
Star of the Sea,
Mother.
[16]
Annael—and I remembered the sea-shell
and I remembered the empty lane
and I thought again of people,
daring the blinding rage
of the lightning, and I thought,
there is no shrine, no temple
in the city for that other, Uriel,
and I knew his companion,
companion of the fire-to-endure
was another fire, another candle,
was another of seven,
named among the seven Angels,
Annael,
peace of God.
[17]
So we hail them together,
one to contrast the other,
two of the seven Spirits,
set before God
as lamps on the high-altar,
for one must inexorably
take fire from the other
as spring from winter,
and surely never, never
was a spring more bountiful
than this; never, never
was a season more beautiful,
richer in leaf and colour;
tell me, in what other place
will you find the may flowering
mulberry and rose-purple?
tell me, in what other city
will you find the may-tree
so delicate, green-white, opalescent
like our jewel in the crucible?
[18]
For Uriel, no temple
but everywhere,
the outer precincts and the squares
are fragrant;
the festival opens as before
with the dove’s murmuring;
for Uriel, no temple
but Love’s sacred groves,
withered in Thebes and Tyre,
flower elsewhere.
[19]
We see her visible and actual,
beauty incarnate,
as no high-priest of Astoroth
could compel her
with incense
and potent spell;
we asked for no sign
but she gave a sign unto us;
sealed with the seal of death,
we thought not to entreat her
but prepared us for burial;
then she set a charred tree before us,
burnt and stricken to the heart;
was it may-tree or apple?
[20]
Invisible, indivisible Spirit,
how is it you come so near,
how is it that we dare
approach the high-altar?
we crossed the charred portico,
passed through a frame-doorless —
entered a shrine; like a ghost,
we entered a house through a wall;
then still not knowing
whether (like the wall)
we were there or not-there,
we saw the tree flowering;
it was an ordinary tree
in an old garden-square.
[23]
We are part of it;
we admit the transubstantiation,
not God merely in bread
but God in the other-half of the tree
that looked dead —
did I bow my head?
did I weep? my eyes saw,
it was not a dream
yet it was vision,
it—was a sign,
it was the Angel which redeemed me,
it was the Holy Ghost —
a half-burnt-out apple-tree
blossoming;
this is the flowering of the rood,
this is the flowering of the wood,
where Annael, we pause to give
thanks that we rise again from death and live.
[24]
Every hour, every moment
has its specific attendant Spirit;
the clock-hand, minute by minute,
ticks round its prescribed orbit;
but this curious mechanical perfection
should not separate but relate rather,
our life, this temporary eclipse
to that other…
[25]
…of the no need
of the moon to shine in it,
for it was ticking minute by minute
(the clock at my bed-head,
with its dim, luminous disc)
when the Lady knocked;
I was talking casually
with friends in the other room,
when we saw the outer hall
grow lighter—then we saw where the door was,
there was no door
(this was a dream, of course),
and she was standing there,
actually, at the turn of the stair.
[29]
We have seen her
the world over,
Our Lady of the Goldfinch,
Our Lady of the Candelabra,
Our Lady of the Pomegranate,
Our Lady of the Chair;
we have seen her, an empress,
magnificent in pomp and grace,
and we have seen her
with a single flower
or a cluster of garden-pinks
in a glass beside her;
we have seen her snood
drawn over her hair,
or her face set in profile
with the blue hood and stars;
we have seen her head bowed down
with the weight of a domed crown
or we have seen her, a wisp of a girl
trapped in a golden halo;
we have seen her with arrow, with doves
and a heart like a valentine;
we have seen her in fine silks imported
from all over the Levant,
and hung with pearls brought
from the city of Constantine;
we have seen her sleeve
of every imaginable shade
of damask and figured brocade;
it is true,
the painters did very well by her;
it is true, they never missed a line
of the suave turn of the head
or subtle shade of lowered eye-lid
or eye-lids half-raised; you find
her everywhere (or did find),
in cathedral, museum, cloister,
at the turn of the palace stair.
[30]
We see her hand in her lap,
smoothing the apple-green
or the apple-russet silk;
we see her hand at her throat,
fingering a talisman
brought by a crusader from Jerusalem;
we see her hand unknot a Syrian veil
or lay down a Venetian shawl
on a polished table that reflects
half a miniature broken column;
we see her stare past a mirror
through an open window,
where boat follows slow boat on the lagoon;
there are white flowers on the water.
[31]
But none of these, none of these
suggest her as I saw her,
though we approach possibly
something of her cool beneficence
in the gracious friendliness
of the marble sea-maids in Venice,
who climb the altar-stair
at Santa Maria dei Miracoli,
or we acclaim her in the name
of another in Vienna,
Maria von dem Schnee,
Our Lady of the Snow.
[32]
For I can say truthfully,
her veils were white as snow,
so as no fuller on earth
can white them; I can say
&
nbsp; she looked beautiful, she looked lovely,
she was clothed with a garment
down to the foot, but it was not
girt about with a golden girdle,
there was no gold, no colour,
there was no gleam in the stuff
nor shadow of hem and seam,
as it fell to the floor; she bore
none of her usual attributes;
the Child was not with her.
[35]
So she must have been pleased with us,
who did not forgo our heritage
at the grave-edge;
she must have been pleased
with the straggling company of the brush and quill
who did not deny their birthright;
she must have been pleased with us,
for she looked so kindly at us
under her drift of veils,
and she carried a book.
[36]
Ah (you say), this is Holy Wisdom,
Santa Sophia, the SS of the Sanctus Spiritus,
so by facile reasoning, logically
the incarnate symbol of the Holy Ghost;
your Holy Ghost was an apple-tree
smouldering—or rather now bourgeoning
with flowers; the fruit of the Tree?
this is the new Eve who comes
clearly to return, to retrieve
what she lost the race,
given over to sin, to death;
she brings the Book of Life, obviously.
[37]
This is a symbol of beauty (you continue),
she is Our Lady universally,
I see her as you project her,
not out of place
flanked by Corinthian capitals,
or in a Coptic nave,
or frozen above the centre door
of a Gothic cathedral;
you have done very well by her
(to repeat your own phrase),
you have carved her tall and unmistakable,
a hieratic figure, the veiled Goddess,
whether of the seven delights,
whether of the seven spear-points.
[38]
O yes—you understand, I say,
this is all most satisfactory,
but she wasn’t hieratic, she wasn’t frozen,
she wasn’t very tall;
she is the Vestal
from the days of Numa,
she carries over the cult
of the Bona Dea,
she carries a book but it is not
the tome of the ancient wisdom,
the pages, I imagine, are the blank pages
of the unwritten volume of the new;
all you say, is implicit,
all that and much more;
but she is not shut up in a cave
like a Sibyl; she is not
imprisoned in leaden bars
in a coloured window;
she is Psyche, the butterfly,
out of the cocoon.
[41]
She carried a book, either to imply
she was one of us, with us,
or to suggest she was satisfied
with our purpose, a tribute to the Angels;
yet though the campanili spoke,
Gabriel, Azrael,
though the campanili answered,
Raphael, Uriel,
though a distant note over-water
chimed Annael, and Michael
was implicit from the beginning,
another, deep, un-named, resurging bell
answered, sounding through them all:
remember, where there was
no need of the moon to shine…
I saw no temple.
[43]
And the point in the spectrum
where all lights become one,
is white and white is not no-colour,
as we were told as children,
but all-colour;
where the flames mingle
and the wings meet, when we gain
the arc of perfection,
we are satisfied, we are happy,
we begin again;
I John saw. I testify
to rainbow feathers, to the span of heaven
and walls of colour,
the colonnades of jasper;
but when the jewel
melts in the crucible,
we find not ashes, not ash-of-rose,
not a tall vase and a staff of lilies,
not vas spirituale,
not rosa mystica even,
but a cluster of garden-pinks
or a face like a Christmas-rose.
This is the flowering of the rod,
this is the flowering of the burnt-out wood,
where, Zadkiel, we pause to give
thanks that we rise again from death and live.
London
May 17-31, 1944.
From The Flowering of the Rod
To Norman Holmes Pearson
…pause to give
thanks that we rise again from death and live.
[1]
O the beautiful garment,
the beautiful raiment —
do not think of His face
or even His hands,
do not think how we will stand
before Him;
remember the snow
on Hermon;
do not look below
where the blue gentian
reflects geometric pattern
in the ice-floe;
do not be beguiled
by the geometry of perfection
for even now,
the terrible banner
darkens the bridge-head;
we have shown
that we could stand;
we have withstood
the anger, frustration,
bitter fire of destruction;
leave the smouldering cities below
(we have done all we could),
we have given until we have no more to give;
alas, it was pity, rather than love, we gave;
now having given all, let us leave all;
above all, let us leave pity
and mount higher
to love — resurrection.
[2]
I go where I love and where I am loved,
into the snow;
I go to the things I love
with no thought of duty or pity;
I go where I belong, inexorably,
as the rain that has lain long
in the furrow; I have given
or would have given
life to the grain;
but if it will not grow or ripen
with the rain of beauty,
the rain will return to the cloud;
the harvester sharpens his steel on the stone;
but this is not our field,
we have not sown this;
pitiless, pitiless, let us leave
The-place-of-a-skull
to those who have fashioned it.
[3]
In resurrection, there is confusion
if we start to argue; if we stand and stare,
we do not know where to go;
in resurrection, there is simple affirmation,
but do not delay to round up the others,
up and down the street; your going
in a moment like this, is the best proof
that you know the way;
does the first wild-goose stop to explain
to the others? no—he is off;
they follow or not
that is their affair;
does the first wild-goose care
whether the others follow or not?
I don’t think so — he is so happy to be off —
he knows where he is going;
so we must be drawn or we must fly,
like the snow-geese of the Arctic circle,
to the Carolinas or to Florida
,
or like those migratory flocks
who still (they say) hover
over the lost island, Atlantis;
seeking what we once knew,
we know ultimately we will find
happiness; to-day shalt thou be
with me in Paradise.
[4]
Blue-geese, white-geese, you may say,
yes, I know this duality, this double nostalgia;
I know the insatiable longing
in winter, for palm-shadow
and sand and burnt sea-drift;
but in the summer, as I watch
the wave till its edge of foam
touches the hot sand and instantly
vanishes like snow on the equator,
I would cry out, stay, stay;
then I remember delicate enduring frost
and its mid-winter dawn-pattern;
in the hot noon-sun, I think of the grey
opalescent winter-dawn; as the wave
burns on the shingle, I think,
you are less beautiful than frost;
but it is also true that I pray,
O, give me burning blue
and brittle burnt sea-weed
above the tide-line,
as I stand, still unsatisfied,
under the long shadow-on-snow of the pine.
[5]
Satisfied, unsatisfied,
satiated or numb with hunger,
this is the eternal urge,
this is the despair, the desire to equilibrate
the eternal variant;
you understand that insistent calling,
that demand of a given moment,
the will to enjoy, the will to live,
not merely the will to endure,
the will to flight, the will to achievement,
Selected Poems of Hilda Doolittle Page 12