I
wondered
at you.
H. D. - Sea Garden
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 to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air--
fruit cannot 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 VIOLET
The white violet
is scented on its stalk,
the sea-violet
fragile as agate,
lies fronting all the wind
among the torn shells
on the sand-bank.
The greater blue violets
flutter on the hill,
but who would change for these
who would change for these
one root of the white sort?
Violet
your grasp is frail
on the edge of the sand-hill,
but you catch the light--
frost, a star edges with its fire.
THE CLIFF TEMPLE
I
Great, bright portal,
shelf of rock,
rocks fitted in long ledges,
rocks fitted to dark, to silver granite,
to lighter rock--
clean cut, white against white.
High--high--and no hill-goat
tramples--no mountain-sheep
has set foot on your fine grass;
you lift, you are the world-edge,
pillar for the sky-arch.
The world heaved--
we are next to the sky:
over us, sea-hawks shout,
gulls sweep past--
the terrible breakers are silent
from this place.
Below us, on the rock-edge,
where earth is caught in the fissures
of the jagged cliff,
a small tree stiffens in the gale,
it bends--but its white flowers
are fragrant at this height.
And under and under,
the wind booms:
it whistles, it thunders,
it growls--it presses the grass
beneath its great feet.
II
I said:
for ever and for ever, must I follow you
through the stones?
I catch at you--you lurch:
you are quicker than my hand-grasp.
I wondered at you.
I shouted--dear--mysterious--beautiful--
white myrtle-flesh.
I was splintered and torn:
the hill-path mounted
swifter than my feet.
Could a daemon avenge this hurt,
I would cry to him--could a ghost,
I would shout--O evil,
follow this god,
taunt him with his evil and his vice.
III
Shall I hurl myself from here,
shall I leap and be nearer you?
Shall I drop, beloved, beloved,
ankle against ankle?
Would you pity me, O white breast?
If I woke, would you pity me,
would our eyes meet?
Have you heard,
do you know how I climbed this rock?
My breath caught, I lurched forward--
stumbled in the ground-myrtle.
Have you heard, O god seated on the cliff,
how far toward the ledges of your house,
how far I had to walk?
IV
Over me the wind swirls.
I have stood on your portal
and I know--
you are further than this,
still further on another cliff.
ORCHARD
I saw the first pear
as it fell--
the honey-seeking, golden-banded,
the yellow swarm
was not more fleet than I,
(spare us from loveliness)
and I fell prostrate
crying:
you have flayed us
with your blossoms,
spare us the beauty
of fruit-trees.
The honey-seeking
paused not,
the air thundered their song,
and I alone was prostrate.
O rough-hewn
god of the orchard,
I bring you an offering--
do you, alone unbeautiful,
son of the god,
spare us from loveliness:
these fallen hazel-nuts,
stripped late of their green sheaths,
grapes, red-purple,
their berries
dripping with wine,
pomegranates already broken,
and shrunken figs
and quinces untouched,
I bring you as offering.
