Poem by Hilda Doolittle

Helen

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still 
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees, unmoved, 
God’s daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.

1. Epigrams
2. Holy Satyr
3. At Ithaca
4. Cities
5. From Citron-Bower

Madison Cawein Helen ("Heaped in raven loops and masses")

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