craven, we hated them then:
now we would count them Gods
beside these, spawn of the earth.
Grant us your mantle, Greek!
grant us but one
to fright (as your eyes) with a sword,
men, craven and weak,
grant us but one to strike
one blow for you, passionate Greek.
1
You would have broken my wings,
but the very fact that you knew
I had wings, set some seal
on my bitter heart, my heart
broke and fluttered and sang.
You would have snared me,
and scattered the strands of my nest;
but the very fact that you saw, sheltered me, claimed me,
set me apart from the rest
Of men — of men, made you a god,
and me, claimed me, set me apart
and the song in my breast,
yours, yours forever
if I escape your evil heart.
2
I loved you:
men have writ and women have said
they loved,
but as the Pythoness stands by the altar,
intense and may not move,
till the fumes pass over;
and may not falter or break,
till the priest has caught the words
that mar or make
a deme or a ravaged town;
so I, though my knees tremble,
my heart break,
must note the rumbling,
heed only the shuddering
down in the fissure beneath the rock
of the temple floor;
must wait and watch
and may not turn nor move,
nor break from my trance to speak
so slight, so sweet,
so simple a word as love.
3
What had you done
had you been true,
I can not think,
I may not know.
What could we do
were I not wise,
what play invent,
what joy devise?
What could we do
if you were great?
(Yet were you lost,
who were there then,
to circumvent
the tricks of men?)
What can we do,
for curious lies
have filled your heart,
and in my eyes
sorrow has writ
that I am wise.
4
If I had been a boy,
I would have worshipped your grace,
I would have flung my worship before your feet,
I would have followed apart,
glad, rent with an ecstasy
to watch you turn
your great head, set on the throat, thick, dark with its sinews,
burned and wrought
like the olive stalk,
and the noble chin
and the throat.
I would have stood,
and watched and watched
and burned,
and when in the night,
from the many hosts, your slaves,
and warriors and serving men
you had turned
to the purple couch and the flame
of the woman, tall like the cypress tree
that flames sudden and swift and free
as with crackle of golden resin
and cones and the locks flung free
like the cypress limbs,
bound, caught and shaken and loosed,
bound, caught and riven and bound
and loosened again,
as in rain of a kingly storm
or wind full from a desert plain.
So, when you had risen
from all the lethargy of love and its heat,
you would have summoned me,
me alone,
and found my hands,
beyond all the hands in the world,
cold, cold, cold,
intolerably cold and sweet.
5
It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear,
only I knew that you, like myself, were sick
of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps
of love and love and lovers and love’s deceit.
It was not chastity that made me wild, but fear
that my weapon, tempered in different heat,
was over-matched by yours, and your hand
skilled to yield death-blows, might break
With the slightest turn — no ill will meant —
my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought,
fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.
Let Zeus Record
I
I say, I am quite done,
quite done with this;
you smile your calm
inveterate chill smile
and light steps back;
intolerate loveliness
smiles at the ranks
of obdurate bitterness;
you smile with keen
chiselled and frigid lips;
it seems no evil
ever could have been;
so, on the Parthenon,
like splendour keeps
peril at bay,
facing inviolate dawn.
II
Men cannot mar you,
women cannot break
your innate strength,
your stark autocracy;
still I will make no plea
for this slight verse;
it outlines simply
Love’s authority:
but pardon this,
that in these luminous days,
I re-invoke the dark
to frame your praise;
as one to make a bright room
seem more bright,
stares out deliberate
into Cerberus-night.
III
Sometimes I chide the manner of your dress;
I want all men to see the grace of you;
I mock your pace, your body’s insolence,
thinking that all should praise, while obstinate
you still insist your beauty’s gold is clay:
I chide you that you stand not forth entire,
set on bright plinth, intolerably desired;
yet I in turn will cheat, will thwart your whim,
I’ll break my thought, weld it to fit your measure
as one who sets a statue on a height
to show where Hyacinth or Pan have been.
IV
When blight lay and the Persian like a scar,
and death was heavy on Athens, plague and war,
you gave me this bright garment and this ring;
I who still kept of wisdom’s meagre store
a few rare songs and some philosophising,
offered you these for I had nothing more;
that which both Athens and the Persian mocked
you took, as a cold famished bird takes grain,
blown inland through darkness and withering rain.
V
Would you prefer myrrh-flower or cyclamen?
I have them, I could spread them out again;
but now for this stark moment while Love breathes
his tentative breath, as dying, yet still lives,
wait as that time you waited tense with me:
others shall love when Athens lives again,
you waited in the agonies of war;
others will praise when all the host proclaims
Athens the perfect; you, when Athens lost,
stood by her; when the dark perfidious host
turned, it was you who pled for her with death.
VI
Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare
as Hesperus, nor yet so great a star
as bright Aldebaran or
Sirius,
nor yet the stained and brilliant one of War;
stars turn in purple, glorious to the sight;
yours is not gracious as the Pleiads’ are
nor as Orion’s sapphires, luminous;
yet disenchanted, cold, imperious face,
when all the others, blighted, reel and fall,
your star, steel-set, keeps lone and frigid tryst
to freighted ships, baffled in wind and blast.
VII
None watched with me
who watched his fluttering breath,
none brought white roses,
none the roses red;
many had loved,
had sought him luminous,
when he was blithe
and purple draped his bed;
yet when Love fell
struck down with plague and war,
you lay white myrrh-buds
on the darkened lintel;
you fastened blossom
to the smitten sill;
let Zeus record this,
daring Death to mar.
Epitaph
So I may say,
“I died of living,
having lived one hour”;
so they may say,
“she died soliciting
illicit fervour”;
so you may say,
“Greek flower; Greek ecstasy
reclaims for ever
one who died
following
intricate songs’ lost measure.”
The Mysteries
Renaissance Choros
Dark
days are past
and darker days draw near;
darkness on this side,
darkness over there
threatens the spirit
like massed hosts
a sheer
handful
of thrice-doomed spearsmen;
enemy this side,
enemy a part
of hill
and mountain-crest
and under-hill;
nothing before of mystery,
nothing past,
only the emptiness,
pitfall of death,
terror,
the flood,
the earthquake,
stormy ill;
then voice within the turmoil,
that slight breath
that tells as one flower may
of winter past
(that kills
with Pythian bow,
the Delphic pest;)
one flower,
slight voice,
reveals
all holiness
with
“peace
be still.”
II
A sceptre
and a flower-shaft
and a spear,
one flower may kill the winter,
so this rare
enchanter
and magician
and arch-image;
one flower may slay the winter
and meet death,
so this
goes and returns
and dies
and comes to bless
again,
again;
a sceptre and a flower
and a near
protector
to the lost and impotent;
yea,
I am lost,
behold what star is near;
yea,
I am weak,
see
what enchanted armour
clothes the intrepid mind
that sheds the gear
of blighting thought;
behold what wit is here
what subtlety,
what humour
and what light;
see,
I am done,
no lover and none dear,
a voice within the fever,
that slight breath
belies our terror
and our hopelessness,
“lo,
I am here.”
III
“Not to destroy,
nay, but to sanctify
the flower
that springs
Adonis
from the dead;
behold, behold
the lilies
how they grow,
behold how fair,
behold how pure a red,
(so love has died)
behold the lilies
bled
for love; not emperor nor ruler,
none may claim
such splendour;
king may never boast
so beautiful a garment
as the host
of field
and mountain lilies.”
IV
“Not to destroy,
nay, but to sanctify
each flame
that springs
upon the brow of Love;
not to destroy
but to re-invoke
and name
afresh each flower,
serpent
and bee
and bird;
behold,
behold
the spotted snake
how wise;
behold the dove,
the sparrow,
not one dies
without your father;
man sets the trap
and bids the arrow fly,
man snares the mother-bird
while passing by
the shivering fledglings,
leaving them to lie
starving;
no man,
no man,
no man
may ever fear
that this one,
winnowing the lovely air,
is overtaken by a bird of prey,
that this is stricken
in its wild-wood plight,
that this dies broken
in the wild-wood snare,
I
and my father
care.”
V
“Not to destroy,
nay, but to sanctify
the fervour
of all ancient mysteries;
behold the dead are lost,
the grass has lain
trampled
and stained
and sodden;
behold,
behold,
behold
the grass disdains
the rivulet
of snow and mud and rain;
the grass,
the grass
rises
with flower-bud;
the grain
lifts its bright spear-head
to the sun again;
behold,
behold
the dead
are no more dead,
the grain is gold,
blade,
stalk
and seed within;
the mysteries
are in the grass
and rain.”
VI
“The mysteries remain,
I keep the same
cycle of seed time
and of sun and rain;
Demeter in the grass
I multiply,
renew and bless
Iacchus in the vine;
I hold the law,
I keep the mysteries true,
the first of these
to name the living, dead;
I am red wine and bread.
I keep the law,
I hold the mysteries true,
I am the vine,
the branches, you
and you.”
Magician
There is no man can take,
there is no pool can slake,
ultimately I am alone;
ultimately I am done;
I say,
take colour;
break white into red,
&
nbsp; into blue
into violet
into green;
I say,
take each separately,
the white will slay;
pray constantly,
give me green, Artemis,
red, Ares,
blue, Aphrodite, true lover,
or rose;
I say, look at the lawns,
how the spray
of clematis makes gold or the ray
of the delphinium
violet;
I say,
worship each separate;
no man can endure
your intolerable radium;
white,
radiant,
pure;
who are you?
we are unsure;
give us back the old gods,
to make your plight
tolerable;
pull out the nails,
fling them aside,
any old boat,
left at high-tide,
(you yourself would admit)
has iron as pliable;
burn the thorn;
thorn burns;
how it crackles;
you yourself would be the first to seek
dried weed by some high-sand
to make the land
liveable;
you yourself;
would be the first to scrap
the old trophies
for new.
2
We have crawled back into the womb;
you command?
be born again,
be born,
be born;
the sand
turns gold ripple and the blue
under-side of the wrasse
glints radium-violet as it leaps;
the dolphin leaves a new track,
the bird cuts new wing-beat,
the fox burrows,
begets;
the rabbit,
the ferret,
the weasel,
the stoat and the newt
have nests;
you said,
the foxes have holes,
you yourself none,
do you ask us
to creep in the earth?
too long, too long,
O my Lord,
have we crept,
too long, too long, O my King
have we slept,
too long have we slain,
too long have we wept.
3
What is fire upon rain?
colour;
what is dew upon grass?
odour;
what are you upon us?
fragrance of honey-locust.
What man is cursed?
he without lover;
what woman is blasphemous?
she who, under cover of your cloak,
casts love out.
Your cloak hides the sinner,
your cloak shields the lover,
colour of wine,
cyclamen,
Selected Poems of Hilda Doolittle Page 6
