Orchard

Hilda Doolittle 1886 (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) – 1961 (Zurich)



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:
        you have flayed us
        with your 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,
        I bring you an offering--
        do you, alone unbeautiful,
        son of the god,
        spare us from loveliness:
         
        these fallen hazel-nuts,
        stripped late of their green sheaths,
        grapes, red-purple,
        their berries
        dripping with wine,
        pomegranates already broken,
        and shrunken figs
        and quinces untouched,
        I bring you as offering.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 23, 2023

33 sec read
177

Quick analysis:

Scheme xaxxxBcdbbxb dxxc xxdaxB bbxbxxbxd
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 914
Words 112
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 12, 4, 6, 9

Hilda Doolittle

Hilda Doolittle was an American poet, novelist, and memoirist, associated with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets, including Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. She published under the pen name H. D. Hilda was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1886, and grew up just outside Philadelphia in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and attended Bryn Mawr College. She moved to London in 1911, where she played a central role within the then-emerging Imagist movement. Young and charismatic, she was championed by the modernist poet Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in building her career. From 1916–17, she acted as the literary editor of the Egoist journal, while her poetry appeared in the English Review and the Transatlantic Review.  more…

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