Share this page :
Hilda Doolittle (10 September 1886 – 27 September 1961 / Bethlehem, Pennsylvania)
Poems by Hilda Doolittle : 12 / 30
Helen
All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.
All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.
Greece sees, unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.
Hilda Doolittle
Submitted: Friday, January 03, 2003
Read poems about / on: daughter, beauty, god, love, hate, remember, smile
Poems by Hilda Doolittle : 12 / 30
People who read Hilda Doolittle also read
Top 500 Poems
-
Phenomenal Woman
Maya Angelou
-
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
-
If You Forget Me
Pablo Neruda
-
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
-
Dreams
Langston Hughes
-
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
-
If
Rudyard Kipling
-
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
-
Invictus
William Ernest Henley
-
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
I start out my advanced ESL class by projecting a page from my Poetry Speaks day calendar for that day. For September 9 I find a biography of H.R., so I sought a short poem for the class to read. I found Helen, which couldn't be more apropos. The sentiment is very clear and set forth in imagery that is sharp, a signature of H.R. Helen won the hatred of the Greeks for past enchantments and past ills, and the Greeks could love her only if she were burned in a funeral pyre. Aaargg.