Selected Poems of Hilda Doolittle

by Hilda Doolittle

  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,