Evening

The light passes

from ridge to ridge,

from flower to flower -

the hypaticas, wide-spread

under the light

grow faint -

the petals reach inward,

the blue tips bend

toward the bluer heart

and the flowers are lost.

The cornel buds are still white,

but shadow dart

from the cornel-roots -

black creeps from root to root,

each leaf

cuts another leaf from the grass,

shadow seeks shadow,

then both leaf

and shadow-leaf are lost.

H.D. in Imagist Poetry, Penguin Books, 1972.

4.1

So it was nothing, nothing at all,

the loss, the gain; it was nothing,

the victory, the shouting

and Hector slain; it was nothing

the days of waiting were over;

perhaps his death was bitter,

I do not know; I am awake,

I see things clearly; it is dawn,

the light has changed only a little,

the day will come;

did he speak to me?

he seemed to say, it was nothing,

the arid plain, only the wind,

tearing the canvas loose,

and the tent-pole swaying,

and I lying on my pallet, awake

and hearing the flap of the sail

the creak of the mast in the mast-hold,

and caring nothing for heat,

nothing for cold,

numb with a memory,

a sort of ecstasy of desolation,

a desire to return to the old

thunder and roar of the sea...

waiting to join Hector,

but I can not be slain,

I am immortal, invincible,

son of a Greek king;

did she taunt him then,

the little image,

fearless to plough the sea,

did she laugh to see her son,

entrapped in the armoury

of iron and ruin?

did she come,

his eidolon?

H.D., Helen in Egypt, New Directions, s.d. (1961, 1ªed.)

3.5

So they swooped to their prey;

there was never such a spread of wings,

such a play of golden feathers,

though I did not see them,

I heard them, as I heard myself say,

O Thetis, O sea-mother;

Let me forget the other,

for to-day is to-day,

ringed and rayed with the word "beautiful";

how shall I answer him?

what is the answer to

Helena, which was the dream?

the rasp of a severed wheel,

the fury of steel upon steel,

the spark from a sword on a shield?

or the deathless spark

of Helena's wakening...

a touch in the dark?

H.D., Helen in Egypt, New Directions, s.d. (1961, 1ªed.)

7.8

Strive not to wake the dead;

the incomparable host

with Helen and Achilles

are not dead, not lost;

the isles are fair (nor far),

Paphos, the Cyclades;

a simple spiral-shell may tell

a tale more ancient

than these mysteries;

dare the uncharted seas,

Achilles waits, and life;

beyond these pylons and these gates,

is magic of the wind, the gale;

the mystery of a forest-tree,

whispering its secrets upon Cithaeron,

holds subtler meaning

than this written stone

or leaves of the papyrus;

let rapture summon

and the foam-flecked sand,

and wind and hail,

rain, sleet and the bewildering snow

that lifts and falls,

conceals, reveals,

(the actual

and the apparent veil),

Helen - come home.

H.D., Helen in Egypt, New Directions, s.d. (1961, 1ªed.)

3

I counted the fall of her feet

from turret to turret;

will the count even yesterday's?

will there be five over?

this was a game I played,

a game of prophecy;

if she turns and shields her eyes,

gazing over the plain - yes -;

if she waits as she waited

day before yesterday

for ten heart-beats

before the second gate - no -;

what was the question

to which she gave the answer

with the measured fall of her feet,

or her pause over the rampart

that bridged the iron-gate?

shall we strike as my legions had struck,

first through the long fight,

or shall we take the second place

and leave the Trojan's fate to Odysseus?

did the Command read backward?

I stooped to fasten a greave

that was loosed at the ankle,

when she turned; I stood

indifferent to the rasp of metal,

and her eyes met mine;

you say, I could not see her eyes

across the field of battle,

I could not see their light

shimmering as light on the changeable sea?

all things would change but never

the glance she exchanged with me.

H.D., Helen in Egypt, New Directions, s.d. (1961, 1ªed.)

Livro

O livro de Robert Duncan sobre H. D.