H.D.

The Garden

I

YOU are clear,

O rose, cut in rock,

hard as the descent of hail.

I could scrape the colour

from the petal,

like spilt dye from a rock.

If I could break you

I could break a tree.

If I could stir

I could break a tree,

I could break you.

II

O wind,

rend open the heat,

cut apart the heat,

rend it sideways.

Fruit can not drop

through this thick air:

fruit can not 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.

Sea Lily

REED,

slashed and torn,

but doubly rich --

such great heads as yours

drift upon temple-steps,

but you are shattered

in the wind.

Myrtle-bark

is flecked from you,

scales are dashed from your stem

sand cuts your petal,

furrows it with hard edge,

like flint

on a bright stone.

Yet though the whole wind

slash as your bark,

you are lifted up,

aye -- though it hiss

to cover you with froth.

Sea Iris

I

WEED, moss-weed,

root tangled in sand,

sea-iris, brittle flower,

one petal like a shell

is broken,

and you print a shadow

like a thin twig.

Fortunate one,

scented and stinging,

rigid myrrh-bud,

camphor-flower,

sweet and salt -- you are wind

in our nostrils.

II

Do the murex-fishers

drench you as they pass?

Do your root drag up colour

from the sand?

Have they slipped gold under you;

rivets of gold?

Band of iris-flowers

above the waves,

You are painted blue,

painted like a fresh prow

stained among the salt weeds.

Sea Rose

ROSE, harsh rose,

marred and with stint of petals,

meagre flower, thin,

sparse of leaf,

more precious

than a wet rose,

single on a stem --

you are caught in the drift.

Stunted, with small leaf,

you are flung on the sands,

you are lifted

in the crisp sand

that drives in the wind.

Can the spice-rose

drip such acrid fragrance

hardened in a leaf?

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.

Orion Dead

[Artemis speaks]

THE cornel-trees

uplift from the furrows,

the roots at their bases

strike lower through the barley-sprays.

So arise and face me.

I am poisoned with the rage of song.

I once pierced the flesh

of the wild-deer,

now am I afraid to touch

the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?

I will tear the full flowers

and the little heads

of the grape-hyacinths.

I will strip the life from the bulb

until the ivory layers

lie like narcissus petals

on the black earth.

Arise,

lest I bend an ash-tree

into a taut bow,

and slay -- and tear

all the roots from the earth.

The cornel-wood blazes

and strikes through the barley-sprays,

but I have lost heart for this.

I break a staff.

I break the tough branch.

I know no light in the woods.

I have lost pace with the winds.