Hilda Doolittle - End to Torment - A Memoir of Ezra Pound

“Hallew!” “Hallew!”

Tho the elfin horn shall call to you

’true be true

By the violets in thy leaf brown hair

’ware be ware

Tho the elfin knights shall find thee fair

’ware too fair

Tho hosts of night shall hail thee queen

In the Eringreen

The elf old queen hath sorrow seen

and teen much teen

Tho the shadow lords shall marshall their might

afore thy sight

Hold thou thy heart for my heart’s right

in their despite

Tho night shall dwell in thy child eyes

’wise be wise

That thy child heart to mine emprise

’plies replies

For night shall flee from the fore-sun’s flame

’shame in shame

Tho my heart to thee embeggared came

’same ’tis the same

That lordship o’er the light doth hold

’bold quite bold

And thee to my kingdom I enfold

By spell of old.

From another sonnet .

THY FINGERS MOVE AGAIN ACROSS

MY FACE

AS LITTLE WINDS THAT DREAM

BUT DARE IN NO WISE TELL THEIR

DREAM ALOUD-

That castle stands the highest in the Land

Far seen and mighty

— Of the great hewn stones

What shall I say?

And deep foss-way

That far beneath us bore of old

A swelling turbid sea

Hill-born and torrent-wise

Unto the fields below, where

Staunch villein and wandered

Burgher held the land and tilled

Long labouring for gold of wheat grain

And to see the beards come forth

For barley’s even-tide.

But circle arched above the hum of life

We dwelt, amid the

Ancient boulders

Gods had hewn

And druids runed

Unto the birth most wondrous

That had grown

A mighty fortress while the world had slept

And we awaited in the shadows there

While mighty hands had laboured sightlessly

And shaped this wonder ’bove the ways of men.

Meseems we could not see the great green waves

Nor rocky shore by Tintagoel

From this our hold

But came faint murmuring as undersong

E’en as the burgher’s hum arose

And died as faint wind melody

Beneath our gates.

That wind-swept castle hight with thee alone

Above the dust and rumble of the earth:

It seemeth to mine heart another birth

To date the mystic time, whence I have grown

Unto new mastery of dreams and thrown

Old shadows from me as of lesser worth.

For ‘neath the arches where the winds make mirth

We two may drink a lordship all our own.

Yea alway had I longed to hold real dreams

Not laboured things we make beneath the sun

But such as come unsummoned in our sleep,

And this above thine other gifts, meseems

Thou’st given me. So when the day is done

Thou meet me ’bove the world in this our keep.

Some times I feel thy cheek against my face

Close pressing, soft as is the South’s first breath

That all the soft small earth things summoneth

To spring in woodland and in meadow space

Yea sometimes in a dusty man-filled place

Meseemeth somewise thy hair wandereth

Across my eyes as mist that halloweth

My sight and shutteth out the world’s disgrace

That is apostasy of them that fail

Denying that God doth God’s self disclose

In every beauty that they will not see.

Naethless when this sweetness comes to me

I know thy thought doth pass as elfin “Hail”

That beareth thee, as doth the wind a rose.

I stood still and was a tree amid the wood

Knowing the truth of things unseen before

Of Daphne and the laurel bow

And that god-feasting couple old

That grew elm-oak amid the wold

‘Twas not until the gods had been

Kindly entreated and been brought within

Unto the hearth of their hearts’ home

That they might do this wonder thing.

Naethless I have been a tree amid the wood

And many new things understood

That were rank folly to my head before.

Being before the vision of Li Bel Chasteus

“E’en as lang syne from shadowy castle towers

“Thy striving eyes did wander to discern

“Which compass point my homeward way should be.”

For you meseem some strange strong soul of wine …

Hair some hesitating wind shall blow backward as some brown haze

That drifteth from thy face as fog that shifteth from fore some

Hidden light and slow discloseth that the light is fair—

O thou of Maydes all most wonder sweet

That art my comfort eke and my solace

Whan thee I find in any wolde or place

I doon thee reverence as is most meet.

To cry thy prayse I nill nat be discreet

Thou hast swich debonairite and grace

Swich gentyl smile thy alderfayrest face

To run thy prayse I ne hold not my feet.

My Lady, tho I ne me hold thee fro

Nor streyve with thee by any game to play

But offer only thee myn own herte reede

I prey by love that thou wilt kindness do

And that thou keep my song by night and day

As shadow blood from myn own herte y-blede.

Full oft in musty, quaint lined book of old

Have I found rhyming for some maiden quaint

In fashioned chançonnette and teen’s compleynt

The sweet-scent loves of chivalry be told

With fair conceit and flower manifold

Right subtle tongued in complex verse restraint

Against their lyric might my skill’s but faint.

My flower’s outworn, the later rhyme runs cold

Naethless, I loving cease me not to sing

Love song was blossom to the searching breeze

E’er Paris’ rhyming had availed to bring

Helen and Greece for towered Troy’s disease

Wherefor, these petals to the winds I fling

’Vail they or fail they as the winds shall please.

“I would go forth into the night” she saith.

The night is very cold beneath the moon

’Twere meet, my Love that thou went forth at noon

For now the sky is cold as very death.

And then she drew a little sobbing breath

“Without a little lonely wind doth crune

And calleth me with wandered elfin rune

That all true wind-born children summoneth

Dear, hold me closer! so, till it is past

Nay I am gone the while. Await!”

And I await her here for I have understood.

Yet held I not this very wind — bound fast

Within the castle of my soul I would

For very faintness at her parting, die.

Sancta Patrona

Domina Caelae

Out of thy purity

Saint Hilda pray for me.

Lay on my forehead

The hands of thy blessing.

Saint Hilda pray for me

Lay on my forehead

Cool hands of thy blessing

Out of thy purity

Lay on my forehead

White hands of thy blessing.

Virgo caelicola

Ora pro nobis .

She hath some tree-born spirit of the wood

About her, and the wind is in her hair

Meseems he whisp’reth and awaiteth there

As if somewise he also understood.

The moss-grown kindly trees, meseems, she could

As kindred claim, for tho to some they wear

A harsh dumb semblance, unto us that care

They guard a marvelous sweet brotherhood

And thus she dreams unto the soul of things

Forgetting me, and that she hath it not

Of dull man-wrought philosophies I wot,