Hilda Doolittle (10 September 1886 – 27 September 1961 / Bethlehem, Pennsylvania)

''I have lain
with strange lovers;
each one was your
power and steadiness
that grew luminous.''

''Your anger charms me,
and yet all the time
I think of chaste, slight hands,
veined snow.''

''What do I care
that the stream is trampled,
the sand on the stream-bank
still holds the print of your foot:
the heel is cut deep.''

''I watch the white stars darken;
the day comes and the
white stars dim
and lessen
and the lights fade in the city.''

''God of the people,
no clod is too base for your thought,
who made all will not cripple
the mind with injunction.''

''Take all the garden spills,
inveterate,
prodigal spender
just as summer goes.''

''They have melted into the light
and I am desolate;
they have melted;
each from his plinth,
each one departs....''

''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.''

''I stand by your portal,
a white pillar,
luminous.''

''Quivering he sways and quivering clings
(Ah, rare her shoulders drawing back!)
One moment, then the plunderer slips
Between the purple flower-lips.''