This is a collection of poems by Hilda Doolittle about topics relating to the ocean, nature, or both. It contains vivid and descriptive language to convey a wide range of emotions.
By : Hilda Doolittle (1886 - 1961)
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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 sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.
Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?
The Helmsman
O be swift—
we have always known you wanted us.
We fled inland with our flocks,
we pastured them in hollows,
cut off from the wind
and the salt track of the marsh.
We worshipped inland—
we stepped past wood-flowers,
we forgot your tang,
we brushed wood-grass.
We wandered from pine-hills
through oak and scrub-oak tangles,
we broke hyssop and bramble,
we caught flower and new bramble-fruit
in our hair: we laughed
as each branch whipped back,
we tore our feet in half buried rocks
and knotted roots and acorn-cups.
We forgot—we worshipped,
we parted green from green,
we sought further thickets,
we dipped our ankles
through leaf-mould and earth,
and wood and wood-bank enchanted us—
and the feel of the clefts in the bark,
and the slope between tree and tree—
and a slender path strung field to field
and wood to wood
and hill to hill
and the forest after it.
We forgot—for a moment
tree-resin, tree-bark,
sweat of a torn branch
were sweet to the taste.
We were enchanted with the fields,
the tufts of coarse grass
in the shorter grass—
we loved all this.
But now, our boat climbs—hesitates—drops—
climbs—hesitates—crawls back—
climbs—hesitates—
O be swift—
we have always known you wanted us.
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