HILDA DOLITTLE

 

A butterfly sprung out of a cocoon in Sparta,

It flew through several centuries, thousands of wars,

deaths and loves,

then alighted on H.D.'s wavy hair in Philadelphia.

The soul of Helen of Troy.

The butterfly turned into a blue pearl

or a tiny crystal ball.

We can probably use this pearl as a crystal ball

is used for concentrating and directing pictures

from the world of vision.

I am Mary, the incense-flower of the incense-tree

myself worshipping, weeping

shall be changed to myrrh.

Mary, scarf, alabaster, jar-nard,

the odour of the ointment,

the long, carefully braided tresses of my hair.

The pearl's turned back to be

a blue butterfly,

rather a moth.

*

Eliot, unfairly, described the poetry of H.D. as "stucco", "neurotic carnality".

Her 'visions of womb', a nightmare for the anaphrodisia of Mr Prufrock, 

and the phallic obsession of Lawrence. 

D.H. Lawrence, a propos, was inspired by her to write The Man Who Loved Islands, 

where she became the priestess of Isis.

For H.D., the moment of desire is the moment of time beyond time, 

beauty unto death, and beyond death.   

"The hachish superior of dreams".

For Wallace Stevens, a consummate atheist, there is no desire without consummation

(in the reality of time). 

And death is the Mother of Beauty, mystical. 

For H.D., conversely, Beauty is the mother of Death, mythical, that is, 

"the deathless sparks of Helen's wakening". 

The harpers, singing forever about how Achilles met Helen among the shades

 of flowering pomegranates, in Egypt.

The moth has just landed on a pomegranate's bright orange flower.