Poem by Hilda Doolittle

* * *

Wash of cold river 
in a glacial land, 
Ionian water, 
chill, snow-ribbed sand, 
drift of rare flowers, 
clear, with delicate shell- 
like leaf enclosing 
frozen lily-leaf, 
camellia texture, 
colder than a rose; 

wind-flower 
that keeps the breath 
of the north-wind -- 
these and none other; 

intimate thoughts and kind 
reach out to share 
the treasure of my mind, 
intimate hands and dear 
drawn garden-ward and sea-ward 
all the sheer rapture 
that I would take 
to mould a clear 
and frigid statue; 

rare, of pure texture, 
beautiful space and line, 
marble to grace 
your inaccessible shrine.

1. From Citron-Bower
2. Holy Satyr
3. After Troy
4. Heat
5. At Ithaca

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