Turn back,
back
to the lake of Delos;
lest all the song notes
pause and break
across a blood-stained throat....

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Ion.")

The old chains
on her bosom
do not rise,
do not glow
when she breathes,
nor change colour.

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Electra-Orestes.")

I will rise
from my troth
with the dead.

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Wine Bowl.")

So haste not,
bright meteor;
waste not strength,
O fair planet,
singing-sister.

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "The Dancer.")

O night,
you take the petals
of the roses in your hand,
but leave the stark core
of the rose
to perish on the branch.

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Night.")

"But mama,
you have such pretty hair,
curled,
Io has a mother too."

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Grown Up.")

Lay again
your head here, here;
there is no pain,
no disenchantment, no, nor evil spell
can ever touch you.

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Choros Sequence.")

The painters did very well by her;
it is true, they missed never a line
of the suave turn of the head
or subtle shade of lowered eye-lid
or eye-lids half-raised.

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Tribute to the Angels.")

He shows his splendour
in a little room;
he says to us,
be glad
and laugh,
be gay.

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Projector.")

Ah splendour, my goddess turns:
or was it the sudden heat,
beneath quivering of molten flesh,
of veins, purple as violets?

(Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Hippolytus Temporizes.")