H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

“yet for all your arroganceand your glance,I tell you this:such loss is no loss,such terror, such coils and strands and pitfallsof blacknesssuch terroris no loss;hell is no worse than your earthabove the earth,hell is no worse,no, nor your flowersnor your veins of lightnor your presence,a loss;my hell is no worse than yoursthough you pass among the flowers and speakwith the spirits above the earth. ”

“let us not teach / what we have learned badly / and not profited by”

“grape, knife, cup, wheat / are symbols in eternity, / and every concrete object / has abstract value, is timeless / in the dream parallel”

“Let us search the old highways.”

“There's a black rose growing in your garden.”

“...if you do not even understand what words say,how can you expect to pass judgementon what words conceal?”

“remember the golden apple-trees;O, do not pity them, as you watch them dropone by one,for they fall exhausted, numb, blindbut in certain ecstasy,for theirs is the hunger for Paradise.”

“At least I have the flowers of myself,and my thoughts, no godcan take that;I have the fervour of myself for a presenceand my own spirit for light;and my spirit with its lossknows this;though small against the black,small against the formless rocks,hell must break before I am lost;before I am lost,hell must open like a red rosefor the dead to pass.”