H.D. (1886-1961)
Hilda Doolittle, prominently known only by her initials H.D., was an American poet, novelist and memoirist. She is best known for her association with the key early 20th-century avant-garde Imagist group of poets, although her later writing represents a move away from the Imagist model and towards a distinctly feminine version of modernist poetry and prose.
Doolittle was one of the leading figures in the bohemian culture of London in the early decades of the century. Her work is noted for its use of classical models and its exploration of the conflict between lesbian and heterosexual attraction and love that closely resembled her own life. Her later poetry also explores traditional epic themes, such as violence and war, from a feminist perspective.
“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.
“Never more will the wind”
Never more will the wind
cherish you again,
never more will the rain.
Never more
shall we find you bright
in the snow and wind.
The snow is melted,
the snow is gone,
and you are flown:
Like a bird out of our hand,
like a light out of our heart,
you are gone.
“Helen”
All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the luster as of olives
where she stands,
And the white hands.
All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.
Greece sees unmoved,
God’s daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the main,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.
“Stars wheel in purple”
Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare
as Hesperus, nor yet so great a star
as bright Aldeboran 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.
Vade Mecum 