H. D.
Reading edition
HERMES OF THE WAYS
I
The hard sand breaks,
And the grains of it
Are clear as wine.
Far off over the leagues of it,
The wind,
Playing on the wide shore,
Piles little ridges,
And the great waves
Break over it.
But more than the many-foamed ways
Of the sea,
I know him
64Of the triple path-ways.
Hermes,
Who awaiteth.
Dubious,
Facing three ways,
Welcoming wayfarers,
He whom the sea-orchard
Shelters from the west,
From the east
Weathers sea-wind;
Fronts the great dunes.
Wind rushes
Over the dunes,
And the coarse, salt-crusted grass
Answers.
Heu,
It whips round my ankles!
II
Small is
This white stream,
Flowing below ground
From the poplar-shaded hill,
But the water is sweet.
Apples on the small trees
Are hard,
Too small,
Too late ripened
By a desperate sun
That struggles through sea-mist.
The boughs of the trees
Are twisted
65By many bafflings;
Twisted are
The small-leafed boughs.
But the shadow of them
Is not the shadow of the mast head
Nor of the torn sails.
Hermes, Hermes,
The great sea foamed,
Gnashed its teeth about me;
But you have waited,
Where sea-grass tangles with
Shore-grass.
PRIAPUS
Keeper of Orchards
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,
“Thou hast flayed us with thy 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,
66I bring thee an offering;
Do thou, alone unbeautiful
(Son of the god),
Spare us from loveliness.
The fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
The grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken figs,
And quinces untouched,
I bring thee as offering.
THE POOL
Are you alive?
I touch you—
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you, banded one?
OREAD
Whirl up, sea—
Whirl your pointed pines.
Splash your great pines
On our rocks.
Hurl your green over us—
Cover us with your pools of fir.
THE GARDEN
I
You are clear,
O rose, cut in rock.
67I could scrape the color
From the petals,
Like spilt dye from a rock.
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,
Slit 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 grapes.
Cut the heat:
Plough through it,
Turning it on either side
Of your path.
MOONRISE
Will you glimmer on the sea?
Will you fling your spear-head
On the shore?
What note shall we pitch?
68We have a song,
On the bank we share our arrows—
The loosed string tells our note:
O flight,
Bring her swiftly to our song.
She is great,
We measure her by the pine-trees.
THE SHRINE
“She watches over the sea”
I
Are your rocks shelter for ships?—
Have you sent galleys from your beach,
Are you graded—a safe crescent—
Where the tide lifts them back to port?
Are you full and sweet,
Tempting the quiet
To depart in their trading ships?
Nay, you are great, fierce, evil—
You are the land-blight.
You have tempted men
But they perished on your cliffs.
Your lights are but dank shoals,
Slate and pebble and wet shells
And sea-weed fastened to the rocks.
It was evil—evil
When they found you,
When the quiet men looked at you.
They sought a headland
Shaded with ledge of cliff
From the wind-blast.
69But you—you are unsheltered,
Cut with the weight of wind.
You shudder when it strikes,
Then lift, swelled with the blast.
You sink as the tide sinks,
You shrill under hail and sound,
Thunder when thunder sounds.
You are useless:
When the tides swirl
Your boulders cut and wreck
The staggering ships.
II
You are useless,
O grave, O beautiful.
The landsmen tell it—I have heard—
You are useless.
And the wind sounds with this
And the sea
Where rollers shot with blue
Cut under deeper blue.
Oh, but stay tender, enchanted
Where wave-lengths cut you
Apart from all the rest—
For we have found you,
We watch the splendor of you,
We thread throat on throat of freesia
For your shelf.
You are not forgot,
O plunder of lilies,
Honey is not more sweet
Than the salt stretch of your beach.
70III
Stay—stay—
But terror has caught us now.
We passed the men in ships,
We dared deeper than the fisher-folk;
And you strike us with terror,
O bright shaft.
Flame passes under us
And sparks that unknot the flesh—
Sorrow, splitting bone from bone,
Splendors thwart our eyes
And rifts in the splendor,
Sparks and scattered light.
Many warned of this,
Men said:
“There are wrecks on the fore-beach,
Wind will beat your ship,
There is no shelter in that headland;
It is useless waste, that edge,
That front of rock—
Sea-gulls clang beyond the breakers,
None venture to that spot.”
IV
But hail—
As the tide slackens,
As the wind beats out,
We hail this shore—
We sing to you,
Spirit between the headlands
And the further rocks.
71Though oak-beams split,
Though boats and sea-men flounder,
And the strait grind sand with sand
And cut boulders to sand and drift—
Your eyes have pardoned our faults,
Your hands have touched us;
You have leaned forward a little
And the waves can never thrust us back
From the splendor of your ragged coast.