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Best Famous Hilda Doolittle Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Hilda Doolittle poems. This is a select list of the best famous Hilda Doolittle poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Hilda Doolittle poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of hilda doolittle poems.

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Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

Sheltered Garden

 I have had enough. 
I gasp for breath. 

Every way ends, every road, 
every foot-path leads at last 
to the hill-crest -- 
then you retrace your steps, 
or find the same slope on the other side, 
precipitate. 

I have had enough -- 
border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies, 
herbs, sweet-cress. 

O for some sharp swish of a branch -- 
there is no scent of resin 
in this place, 
no taste of bark, of coarse weeds, 
aromatic, astringent -- 
only border on border of scented pinks. 

Have you seen fruit under cover 
that wanted light -- 
pears wadded in cloth, 
protected from the frost, 
melons, almost ripe, 
smothered in straw? 

Why not let the pears cling 
to the empty branch? 
All your coaxing will only make 
a bitter fruit -- 
let them cling, ripen of themselves, 
test their own worth, 
nipped, shrivelled by the frost, 
to fall at last but fair 
with a russet coat. 

Or the melon -- 
let it bleach yellow 
in the winter light, 
even tart to the taste -- 
it is better to taste of frost -- 
the exquisite frost -- 
than of wadding and of dead grass. 

For this beauty, 
beauty without strength, 
chokes out life. 
I want wind to break, 
scatter these pink-stalks, 
snap off their spiced heads, 
fling them about with dead leaves -- 
spread the paths with twigs, 
limbs broken off, 
trail great pine branches, 
hurled from some far wood 
right across the melon-patch, 
break pear and quince -- 
leave half-trees, torn, twisted 
but showing the fight was valiant. 

O to blot out this garden 
to forget, to find a new beauty 
in some terrible 
wind-tortured place.


Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

Leda

 Where the slow river 
meets the tide, 
a red swan lifts red wings 
and darker beak, 
and underneath the purple down 
of his soft breast 
uncurls his coral feet. 

Through the deep purple 
of the dying heat 
of sun and mist, 
the level ray of sun-beam 
has caressed 
the lily with dark breast, 
and flecked with richer gold 
its golden crest. 

Where the slow lifting 
of the tide, 
floats into the river 
and slowly drifts 
among the reeds, 
and lifts the yellow flags, 
he floats 
where tide and river meet. 

Ah kingly kiss -- 
no more regret 
nor old deep memories 
to mar the bliss; 
where the low sedge is thick, 
the gold day-lily 
outspreads and rests 
beneath soft fluttering 
of red swan wings 
and the warm quivering 
of the red swan's breast.
Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

The Mysteries Remain

 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
Bacchus in the vine;
I hold the law,
I keep the mysteries true,
the first of these
to name the living, dead;
I am the wine and bread.
I keep the law,
I hold the mysteries true,
I am the vine,
the branches, you
and you.
Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

The Pool

 Are you alive? 
I touch you. 
You quiver like a sea-fish. 
I cover you with my net. 
What are you - banded one?
Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

Wash of Cold River

 Wash of cold river 
in a glacial land, 
Ionian water, 
chill, snow-ribbed sand, 
drift of rare flowers, 
clear, with delicate shell- 
like leaf enclosing 
frozen lily-leaf, 
camellia texture, 
colder than a rose; 

wind-flower 
that keeps the breath 
of the north-wind -- 
these and none other; 

intimate thoughts and kind 
reach out to share 
the treasure of my mind, 
intimate hands and dear 
drawn garden-ward and sea-ward 
all the sheer rapture 
that I would take 
to mould a clear 
and frigid statue; 

rare, of pure texture, 
beautiful space and line, 
marble to grace 
your inaccessible shrine.


Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

Heat

 O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air--
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat--
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.
Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

Oread

 Whirl up, sea— 
Whirl your pointed pines. 
Splash your great pines 
On our rocks. 
Hurl your green over us— 
Cover us with your pools of fir.
Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

At Baia

 I should have thought
in a dream you would have brought
some lovely, perilous thing,
orchids piled in a great sheath,
as who would say (in a dream),
"I send you this,
who left the blue veins
of your throat unkissed."

Why was it that your hands
(that never took mine),
your hands that I could see
drift over the orchid-heads
so carefully,
your hands, so fragile, sure to lift
so gently, the fragile flower-stuff--
ah, ah, how was it

You never sent (in a dream)
the very form, the very scent,
not heavy, not sensuous,
but perilous--perilous--
of orchids, piled in a great sheath,
and folded underneath on a bright scroll,
some word:

"Flower sent to flower;
for white hands, the lesser white,
less lovely of flower-leaf,"

or

"Lover to lover, no kiss,
no touch, but forever and ever this."
Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

Cities

 Can we believe -- by an effort 
comfort our hearts: 
it is not waste all this, 
not placed here in disgust, 
street after street, 
each patterned alike, 
no grace to lighten 
a single house of the hundred 
crowded into one garden-space. 

Crowded -- can we believe, 
not in utter disgust, 
in ironical play -- 
but the maker of cities grew faint 
with the beauty of temple 
and space before temple, 
arch upon perfect arch, 
of pillars and corridors that led out 
to strange court-yards and porches 
where sun-light stamped 
hyacinth-shadows 
black on the pavement. 

That the maker of cities grew faint 
with the splendour of palaces, 
paused while the incense-flowers 
from the incense-trees 
dropped on the marble-walk, 
thought anew, fashioned this -- 
street after street alike. 

For alas, 
he had crowded the city so full 
that men could not grasp beauty, 
beauty was over them, 
through them, about them, 
no crevice unpacked with the honey, 
rare, measureless. 

So he built a new city, 
ah can we believe, not ironically 
but for new splendour 
constructed new people 
to lift through slow growth 
to a beauty unrivalled yet -- 
and created new cells, 
hideous first, hideous now -- 
spread larve across them, 
not honey but seething life. 

And in these dark cells, 
packed street after street, 
souls live, hideous yet -- 
O disfigured, defaced, 
with no trace of the beauty 
men once held so light. 

Can we think a few old cells 
were left -- we are left -- 
grains of honey, 
old dust of stray pollen 
dull on our torn wings, 
we are left to recall the old streets? 

Is our task the less sweet 
that the larve still sleep in their cells? 
Or crawl out to attack our frail strength: 
You are useless. We live. 
We await great events. 
We are spread through this earth. 
We protect our strong race. 
You are useless. 
Your cell takes the place 
of our young future strength. 

Though they sleep or wake to torment 
and wish to displace our old cells -- 
thin rare gold -- 
that their larve grow fat -- 
is our task the less sweet? 

Though we wander about, 
find no honey of flowers in this waste, 
is our task the less sweet -- 
who recall the old splendour, 
await the new beauty of cities? 

The city is peopled 
with spirits, not ghosts, O my love: 

Though they crowded between 
and usurped the kiss of my mouth 
their breath was your gift, 
their beauty, your life.
Written by Hilda Doolittle | Create an image from this poem

Cassandra

 O Hymen king. 

Hymen, O Hymen king, 
what bitter thing is this? 
what shaft, tearing my heart? 
what scar, what light, what fire 
searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame? 
nameless, O spoken name, 
king, lord, speak blameless Hymen. 

Why do you blind my eyes? 
why do you dart and pulse 
till all the dark is home, 
then find my soul 
and ruthless draw it back? 
scaling the scaleless, 
opening the dark? 
speak, nameless, power and might; 
when will you leave me quite? 
when will you break my wings 
or leave them utterly free 
to scale heaven endlessly? 

A bitter, broken thing, 
my heart, O Hymen lord, 
yet neither drought nor sword 
baffles men quite, 
why must they feign to fear 
my virgin glance? 
feigned utterly or real 
why do they shrink? 
my trance frightens them, 
breaks the dance, 
empties the market-place; 
if I but pass they fall 
back, frantically; 
must always people mock? 
unless they shrink and reel 
as in the temple 
at your uttered will. 

O Hymen king, 
lord, greatest, power, might, 
look for my face is dark, 
burnt with your light, 
your fire, O Hymen lord; 
is there none left 
can equal me 
in ecstasy, desire? 
is there none left 
can bear with me 
the kiss of your white fire? 
is there not one, 
Phrygian or frenzied Greek, 
poet, song-swept, or bard, 
one meet to take from me 
this bitter power of song, 
one fit to speak, Hymen, 
your praises, lord? 

May I not wed 
as you have wed? 
may it not break, beauty, 
from out my hands, my head, my feet? 
may Love not lie beside me 
till his heat 
burn me to ash? 
may he not comfort me, then, 
spent of all that fire and heat, 
still, ashen-white and cool 
as the wet laurels, 
white, before your feet 
step on the mountain-slope, 
before your fiery hand 
lift up the mantle 
covering flower and land, 
as a man lifts, 
O Hymen, from his bride, 
(cowering with woman eyes,) the veil? 
O Hymen lord, be kind.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things