II There was a darkness in this man; an immense and hollow darkness, Of which we may not speak, nor share with him, nor enter; A darkness through which strong roots stretched downwards into the earth Towards old things; Towards the herdman-kings who walked the earth and spoke with God, Towards the wanderers who sought for they knew not what, and found their goal at last; Towards the men who waited, only waited patiently when all seemed lost, Many bitter winters of defeat; Down to the granite of patience These roots swept, knotted fibrous roots, prying, piercing, seeking, And drew from the living rock and the living waters about it The red sap to carry upwards to the sun. Not proud, but humble, Only to serve and pass on, to endure to the end through service; For the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and all that bring not forth good fruit Shall be cut down on the day to come and cast into the fire. III There is silence abroad in the land to-day, And in the hearts of men, a deep and anxious silence; And, because we are still at last, those bronze lips slowly open, Those hollow and weary eyes take on a gleam of light. Slowly a patient, firm-syllabled voice cuts through the endless silence Like labouring oxen that drag a plow through the chaos of rude clay-fields: "I went forward as the light goes forward in early spring, But there were also many things which I left behind. "Tombs that were quiet; One, of a mother, whose brief light went out in the darkness, One, of a loved one, the snow on whose grave is long falling, One, only of a child, but it was mine. "Have you forgot your graves? Go, question them in anguish, Listen long to their unstirred lips. From your hostages to silence, Learn there is no life without death, no dawn without sun-setting, No victory but to Him who has given all." IV The clamour of cannon dies down, the furnace-mouth of the battle is silent. The midwinter sun dips and descends, the earth takes on afresh its bright colours. But he whom we mocked and obeyed not, he whom we scorned and mistrusted, He has descended, like a god, to his rest. Over the uproar of cities, Over the million intricate threads of life wavering and crossing, In the midst of problems we know not, tangling, perplexing, ensnaring, Rises one white tomb alone. Beam over it, stars. Wrap it round, stripes-stripes red for the pain that he bore for you Enfold it forever, O flag, rent, soiled, but repaired through your anguish; Long as you keep him there safe, the nations shall bow to your law. Strew over him flowers; Blue forget-me-nots from the north, and the bright pink arbutus From the east, and from the west rich orange blossoms, But from the heart of the land take the passion-flower. Rayed, violet, dim, With the nails that pierced, the cross that he bore and the circlet, And beside it there, lay also one lonely snow-white magnolia, Bitter for remembrance of the healing which has passed. THE SKATERS Black swallows swooping or gliding In a flurry of entangled loops and curves; And the grinding click of their skates as they impinge upon the surface, Is like the brushing together of thin wing-tips of silver. "H. D." Hilda Doolittle was born September 10, 1886, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. When she was still a child, her father became Director of the Flower Observatory and the family moved to a suburb in the outskirts of Philadelphia. Hilda Doolittle attended a private school in West Philadelphia; entered Bryn Mawr College in 1904; and went abroad, for what was intended to be a short sojourn, in 1911. After a visit to Italy and France, she came to London, joining Ezra Pound and helping to organize the Imagists. Her work (signed "H. D.") began to appear in a few magazines and its unusual quality was recognized at once. She married one of the most talented of the English members of this group (Richard Aldington) in 1913 and remained in London, creating, through a chiseled verse, her pure and flawless reproductions of Greek poetry and sculpture. In 1920, she made her long-deferred visit to America, settling on the Californian coast, returning, the following year, to England. "H. D." is, by all odds, the most important of her group. She is the only one who has steadfastly held to the letter as well as the spirit of its credo. She is, in fact, the only true Imagist. Her poems, capturing the firm delicacy of the Greek models, are like a set of Tanagra figurines. Here, at first glance, the effect is chilling-beauty seems held in a frozen gesture. But it is in this very fixation of light, color and emotion that she achieves intensity. What, at first, seemed static becomes fluent; the arrested moment glows with brimming energy. Observe the poem entitled "Heat." Here, in the fewest possible words, is something beyond the description of heathere is the effect of it. In these lines one feels the very weight. and solidity of a midsummer afternoon. Her efforts to draw the contemporary world are less happy. She is best in her reflections of clear-cut loveliness in a quietly pagan world. Her art, in its precision and polish, is curiously Hellenic; "H. D.," in most of her moods, seems less of a contemporary than an inspired anachronism. OREAD Whirl up, sea— Whirl your pointed pines. Splash your great pines On our rocks. Hurl your green over us― |