Selected Poems of Hilda Doolittle

by Hilda Doolittle

  I do not want to forget his anger,

  not only because it brought Helen

  to sleep in his arms,

  but because he was, in any case,

  defeated; if he strangled her

  and flung her to the vultures,

  still, he had lost

  and they had lost

  the war-Lords of Greece.

  [2]

  It is the burning ember

  that I remember,

  heart of the fire,

  consuming the Greek heroes;

  it is the funeral pyre;

  it is incense from the incense-trees,

  wafted here through the columns;

  never, never do I forget the host,

  the chosen, the flower

  of all-time, of all-history;

  it was they who struck,

  as the flint, the spark

  of his anger, “no art is beneath your power”;

  what power drew them to me?

  a hieroglyph, repeated endlessly,

  upon the walls, the pillars,

  the thousand-petalled lily;

  they are not many, but one,

  enfolded in sleep,

  as the furled lotus-bud,

  or with great wings unfurled,

  sailing in ecstasy,

  the western sea,

  climbing sea-mountains,

  dividing the deep valleys of the sea;

  but now, go, go,

  Achilles from me;

  I feel the lure of the invisible,

  I am happier here alone

  in this great temple,

  with this great temple’s

  indecipherable hieroglyph;

  I have “read” the lily,

  I can not “read” the hare, the chick, the bee,

  I would study and decipher

  the indecipherable Amen-script.

  [3]

  We were right. Helen herself denies an actual intellectual knowledge of the temple-symbols. But she is nearer to them than the instructed scribe; for her, the secret of the stone-writing is repeated in natural or human symbols. She herself is the writing.

  I said, I was instructed in the writ;

  but I had only heard of it,

  when our priests decried

  papyrus fragments,

  travellers brought back,

  as crude, primeval lettering;

  I had only seen a tattered scroll’s

  dark tracing of a caravel

  with a great sun’s outline,

  but inked-in, as with shadow;

  it seemed a shadow-sun,

  the boat, a picture of a toy;

  I was not interested,

  I was not instructed,

  nor guessed the inner sense of the hieratic,

  but when the bird swooped past,

  that first evening,

  I seemed to know the writing,

  as if God made the picture

  and matched it

  with a living hieroglyph;

  how did I know the vulture?

  why did I invoke the mother?

  why was he seized with terror?

  in the dark, I must have looked

  an inked-in shadow; but with his anger,

  that ember, I became

  what his accusation made me

  Isis, forever with that Child,

  the Hawk Horus.

  [4]

  Helen is a Greek, a Spartan, born from a sea-faring people. Although in Egypt, it is not the primitive caravel, as she calls the shadow or death-ship of Osiris, that she visualizes, when she would recall the host of Spirits. Her vision is wholly Greek, though she returns to the sacred Egyptian lily for her final inspiration.

  This is the spread of wings,

  whether the Straits claimed them

  or the Cyclades,

  whether they floundered on the Pontic seas

  or ran aground before the Hellespont,

  whether they shouted Victory at the gate,

  whether the bowmen shot them from the Walls,

  whether they crowded surging through the breach,

  or died of fever on the smitten plain,

  whether they rallied and came home again,

  in the worn hulks, half-rotted from the salt

  or sun-warped on the beach,

  whether they scattered or in companies,

  or three or two sought the old ways of home,

  whether they wandered as Odysseus did,

  encountering new adventure, they are one;

  no, I was not instructed, but I “read” the script,

  I read the writing when he seized my throat,

  this was his anger,

  they were mine, not his,

  the unnumbered host;

  mine, all the ships,

  mine, all the thousand petals of the rose,

  mine, all the lily-petals,

  mine, the great spread of wings,

  the thousand sails,

  the thousand feathered darts

  that sped them home,

  mine, the one dart in the Achilles-heel,

  the thousand-and-one, mine.

  Winter Love

  (Espérance)

  (January 3-April 15, 1959)

  [2]

  If I thought of you, I only thought

  of something that endured, that might endure;

  I did not know of Circe and her power,

  I had not even heard Calypso named, nor Nausicaä,

  Penelope was a far-off dream of home,

  and others and the quarrel in the tents

  (fight for Criseus, war for Briseus)

  was only a local matter, far below

  the turrets and the ramparts and the Wall;

  I loved Achilles finally, in Leuké,

  but I let him go, back to the sea,

  back to his mother, Thetis;

  so he was absorbed, re-claimed by his own element?

  I do not know, Odysseus—your name is unfamiliar;

  I had not thought of it nor spoken it,

  for ten years—it is more than ten years;

  then, you were in and out as they all were at the Palace,

  it is more, more than ten years …

  [5]

  So we were together

  though I did not think of you

  for ten years;

  it is more than ten years

  and the long time after;

  I was with you in Calypso’s cave?

  no, no — I had never heard of her,

  but I remember the curve of honey-flower

  on an old wall, I recall

  the honey-flower as I saw it

  or seemed to see it

  for the first time,

  its horn was longer, whiter what do I mean?

  “bite clear the stem

  and suck the honey out,”

  a child companion or old grandam

  taught me to suck honey

  from the honey-flower;

  what is Calypso’s cave?

  that is your grotto, your adventure;

  how could I love again, ever?

  repetition, repetition, Achilles, Paris, Menelaus?

  but you are right, you are right,

  there is something left over,

  the first unsatisfied desire

  the first time, that first kiss,

  the rough stones of a wall,

  the fragrance of honey-flowers, the bees,

  and how I would have fallen but for a voice,

  calling through the brambles

  and tangle of bay-berry

  and rough broom,

  Helen, Helen, come home;

  there was a Helen before there was a War,

  but who remembers her?

  [6]

  The-tis-Sea-’tis, I played games like this;

  I had long reveries, invoked the future,

  re-invoked the past, syllables, mysteries, numbers;

  I m
ust have turned a secret key, unwittingly,

  when I said Odysseus—when did I say Odysseus?

  how did I call you back, or how did I come back?

  memory has its own strange Circe-magic,

  and forgetting, stranger; forgetting utterly, I dropped

  a screen, a shutter; a heavy door clanged

  between Helen-Helen; “they have gone,”

  “where have they gone?” “down to the Sea,

  to send Odysseus off-” “Odysseus-”

  “he was only waiting for his Ship,

  a special Ship, ancestral,

  the prow is painted with the ancient Eyes.”

  I was to meet you, I was to meet you

  under the oleanders,

  I was to meet you again;

  “a special Ship, for festival,” they said,

  so Helen stared, a Maiden, still a Maiden,

  though last night, escaped the grandam,

  Helen was conceived under the oleanders,

  that is, Helen, the future Helen

  that wrecked citadels, was born.

  [16]

  O, do not bring snow-water

  but fresh snow;

  I would be bathed with stars,

  new fallen from heaven,

  one with the cloud,

  my forehead ringed

  with icy frost, a crown;

  let my mind flash with blades,

  let thought return,

  unravel the thick skein,

  woven of tangled memory and desire,

  lust of the body, hunger, cold and thirst;

  our hidden lair has sanctified Virgo,

  the lost, unsatisfied, the broken tryst,

  the half-attained;

  love built on dreams

  of the forgotten first unsatisfied embrace,

  is satisfied.

  [19]

  STROPHE

  Odysseus’ fretful brow,

  Achilles’ cunning steel,

  and Paris’ apple — you have them now,

  the adventure and the glory

  and the seeds of fruit to sow —

  how many grains of pomegranate or apple?

  conjure a magic circle of fruit-trees,

  with roots to hold Leuké, the island-Helen,

  in a firm embrace,

  an inescapable net,

  until the flowers are full

  and waft and spill fragrance, enchantment;

  who can break the will

  of seed to grow?

  Paris-Oenone?

  Helen, commend their happiness

  and so invoke the greater bliss

  of Helios-Helen-Eros.

  [20]

  ANTISTROPHE

  Rise from your apathy, your dream,

  the die was cast and Helen lost;

  leave lovers to their happiness

  and grope your way, ignoble and defenceless

  in the dark; yours was the guilt;

  slough off the fantasy, accept the tangible,

  go out, go out, go forth,

  renounce the cult of dream for stark reality,

  the ashes, the dark scarf,

  the veils of widowhood;

  you are bereft,

  accept the accomplished fact;

  beyond, beyond, beyond,

  when your bare feet

  bleed with the salty wrack

  of a strange coast,

  and your hair hangs,

  loosed from its golden snood,

  in snaky tangles, lift a stone

  and taste the salt of earth, the salt of sea,

  and with the stone, strike at your breast and cry,

  “alas, alas, mine was the blame,

  mine was the guilt”;

  down, down, down the path of glory,

  the Sun goes into the dark,

  the Gods decree

  that Helen is deserted utterly.

  [21]

  O ebony island, O tall cypress-trees,

  now I am blessed anew as my dark veils

  cling close and close and make an image of me,

  a cypress-Helen, vierge and widow, the femme noire;

  now I am wrapped about

  with myrrh and incense,

  Egypt’s balm and savour

  of the burnt Phoenix-nest,

  l’île blanche is l’île noire;

  tighten my bounds,

  O unseen and unknown,

  wrap me round and round

  with Egypt’s linen as the dead are wrapped,

  mystically cut, cauterise

  as with fire, the wound from which

  the heart and entrails were drawn out;

  a shell? a shattered heart?

  no heart is left to heal.

  [24]

  Helios-Helen-Eros? Is that Menelaus?

  is that the golden first love, innocence?

  is that the Child before the Child was born,

  imagined with the cap-crown of bright hair,

  inheritance of the “golden Menelaus”?

  not Menelaus, but myself gazed up at me,

  in the veiled glance of Helen-Hermione;

  they said there was a Child in Leuké,

  they said it was the Child, Euphorion,

  Achilles’ Child, grandam,

  or fantasy of Paris and a Child

  or a wild moment that begot a Child,

  when long ago, the Virgo breasts swelled

  under the savage kiss of ravening Odysseus;

  yes, yes, grandam, but actually and in reality,

  small fists unclosed, small hands fondled me,

  and in the inmost dark,

  small feet searched foot-hold;

  Hermione lived her life and lives in history;

  Euphorion, Espérance, the infinite bliss,

  lives in the hope of something that will be,

  the past made perfect;

  this is the tangible

  this is reality.

  [25]

  The golden apples of the Hesperides,

  the brushed-bloom of the pollen

  on the wing of ravishing butterfly or plundering bee;

  the gold of evanescence or the gold

  of heavy-weighted treasure,

  which will out-weigh the other?

  grandam, great Grande Dame,

  we will go on together,

  and find the way to hyacinths by a river,

  where a harp-note sounded

  and a moment later —

  grandam, great Grande Dame, He is here with us,

  in notes ascending and descending from his lyre,

  your Child, my Child and Helios’ Child, no other,

  to lure us on, on, on, Euphorion, Espérance.

  [27]

  Grandam, midwife, Sage-Femme,

  let me rest, let me rest,

  I can’t struggle any more;

  far, far, let them beget their children

  in the wastes or palaces; what is their happiness,

  their bliss to this accomplishment?

  Oenone, O, Oenone,

  live your life, I need no longer chafe

  in fantasy or remembrance or regret;

  grandam, midwife, Sage-Femme,

  I pray you, as with his last breath,

  a man might pray, keep Espérance,

  our darling from my sight,

  for bliss so great,

  the thought of that soft touch,

  would drag me back to life

  and I would rest;

  grandam, great Grande Dame,

  midwife and Sage-Femme,

  you brought Him forth in darkness,

  while I slept.

  [28]

  I am delirious now and mean to be,

  the whole earth shudders with my ecstasy,

  take Espérance away;

  cruel, cruel Sage-Femme,

  to place him in my arms,

  cruel, cruel Grande Dame,

  to pull my tunic down,r />
  so Odysseus sought my breast

  with savage kiss;

  cruel, cruel midwife,

  so secretly to steal my phantom self,

  my invisibility, my hopelessness, my fate,

  the guilt, the blame, the desolation,

  Paris slain to rise again

  and find Oenone and mortality,

  Achilles’ flight to Thetis

  and the Sea (deserting Leuké),

  Menelaus with his trophies in the palace,

  Odysseus — take the Child away,

  cruel, cruel is Hope,

  terrible the weight of honey and of milk,

  cruel, cruel, the thought of Love,

  while Helen’s breasts swell, painful

  with the ambrosial sap, Amrita

  that must be given;

  I die in agony whether I give or do not give;

  cruel, cruel Sage-Femme,

  wiser than all the regents of God’s throne,

  why do you torture me?

  come, come, O Espérance,

  Espérance, O golden bee,

  take life afresh and if you must,

  so slay me.

  Also by H.D.

  Collected Poems 1912-1944

  End to Torment

  The Gift

  The Hedgehog

  Helen in Egypt

  Hermetic Definition

  HERmione

  Kora and Ka

  Nights

  Tribute to Freud

  Trilogy

  Copyright 1925 by Hilda Doolittle

  Copyright © 1944, 1945, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1969, 1972 by Norman

  Holmes Pearson

  Copyright © 1957 by the Estate of Norman Holmes Pearson

  Copyright © 1950, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1988 by Perdita

  Schaffner

  Copyright © 1982 by the Estate of Hilda Doolittle

  Copyright © 1988 by Louis L. Martz

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.