10 of the Best Poems by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), or H. D. as she chose to publish, was labelled ‘the perfect imagist’ by various critics and reviewers. Born in the United States, H. D. made her literary name in London, where she was at the centre of the short-lived imagist movement during the First World War.

After imagism, H. D. wrote longer and more ambitious works, culminating in the book-length Helen in Egypt (1961). But she continued to hold fast to many of the tents of imagism, including clarity of expression and original use of imagery. I have been teaching the poetry of H. D. (especially her imagist poems) to my students for almost a decade now, and they are often struck by the curious blend of the personal and impersonal which they find in her poems, with their sharp yet curiously emotive language and crystalline but powerful imagery.

The following poems show why H. D. was the leading light of the revolutionary imagist movement, as her poetry offers concise and vivid images behind which lurk whole storms of restrained emotion. Here’s a selection of H. D.’s finest poems, both from her imagist period and from her later work.

1. ‘Oread’.

This six-line poem, perhaps H. D.’s best-known poem, was published in the 1915 anthology Some Imagist Poets, which also featured poems by Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, and F. S. Flint – the main poets who published under the imagist banner.

The Oread or mountain-nymph addresses the sea, asking for it to come up to the land and smother it – but the imagery H. D. uses enacts this very desire, by describing the sea using land-based imagery (seeing the green waves as pine trees, for instance).

However, it’s possible that the word ‘sea’ in the poem’s first line is actually metaphorical, and represents the ‘sea’ of pine trees growing on the mountains: so the mountain-nymph is actually asking the trees to smother its rocks and cover them. But is this ‘covering’ a form of protection, or a smothering?

Is this also a poem about sexuality, and perhaps even same-sex desire? It might be read as such, as well as an innovative nature poem.

2. ‘The Pool’.

It’s unrhymed, it has no regular metre, it uses no superfluous word or phrase, and it has at its centre a strong, clear image – but what does the image of the pool, or to be more accurate, the image in the pool represent in this poem?

Has the poet come face-to-face with her own reflection (making this a poem about self-reflection in both a literal and metaphorical sense), or does the simile of the addressee quivering ‘like a sea-fish’ suggest that the poet is making unwanted overtures to a loved one who now spurns her? Ultimately, the poem’s power resides in its open-endedness.

3. ‘Sea Poppies’.

Written during the First World War, ‘Sea Poppies’ might be read as an alternative war poem, addressing the death and destruction of the Western Front but only obliquely, from a female civilian’s perspective.

The sea-poppies flourish despite the unpromising surroundings out of which they grow, which includes detritus and, suggestively, ‘split shells’ – summoning not just seashells but the more sinister ‘shells’ used in the Great War.

4. ‘Sea Rose’.

Like ‘Sea Poppies’, this poem was collected in H. D.’s first volume of poems, Sea Garden (1916), and in fact opened the collection.

Suggesting a new way of viewing the poetic symbol par excellence, ‘Sea Rose’ presents the harshness and durability of the sea rose: it’s a rose, but not as we (usually) know it. Beauty, in other words, can be spawned in the most surprising and unlikeliest of places.

5. ‘Storm’.

Here’s a short lyric in two parts describing the whirling energies of a rainstorm: the wind batters the tree branches and the rain leaves tiny ‘black’ droplets on the trees.

But this dangerous and destructive energy has the power to transform: the leaf which is torn from the tree becomes as weighty as a ‘green stone’ (like an emerald?) as it drops to the ground.

6. ‘Hermes of the Ways’.

Beginning with an arresting image – grains of sand compared to the clarity of wine – this early H. D. poem showcases her imagistic skill but also her fondness for classical literature (we may recall Homer’s description of the ‘wine-dark sea’, among other things).

The poem tends to be interpreted biographically, as a reflection of Doolittle’s feelings towards Ezra Pound, with whom she had been romantically involved before they were both part of the imagists.

7. ‘Priapus, Keeper-of-Orchards’.

Priapus was a Greek god of fertility, often depicted with an oversize phallus. One reason why H. D. may have been drawn to classical mythology is that it gave her a language – and imagery – for discussing topics which would’ve been unpublishable if they were presented without the ‘respectable’ veneer of ancient myth. So here, does the overly fertile and virile Priapus represent the kinds of unspeakable desires which H. D. may herself have felt?

In this 1913 poem, the speaker is overwhelmed by the abundant beauty and ‘loveliness’ found amongst the natural world: ripe, falling pears, swarming bees, and a litany of fruits which might recall the sensual suggestiveness of Christina Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’ all make for a rich sensory experience.

8. ‘Moonrise’.

Here’s another short imagist lyric which weaves together two of H. D.’s favourite themes: nature and classical mythology. The relationship between arrows and the moon here summons the Roman goddess Diana (and her Greek counterpart, Artemis), associated with both hunting and the moon.

9. ‘Cities’.

This longer and more discursive poem, one of the longest poems from H. D.’s imagist period, is a meditation on the role of the city in both ancient and modern times. But in keeping with her other poetry, Doolittle takes her imagery from nature rather than from the modern metropolis: the image of the beehive, for instance, connotes both industry and the ‘cell’ structures in which many city-dwellers live.

10. ‘The Walls Do Not Fall’.

Perhaps the greatest H. D. poem from the latter half of her career, ‘The Walls Do Not Fall’ grew into the three-part long poem Trilogy, written during the Second World War but taking in religion, comparative mythology, the zodiac, and autobiography (H. D. recalls her time spent in Egypt in the 1920s with her lesbian lover, Bryher), as well as psychoanalysis (H. D. had travelled to Vienna in 1933 to undergo analysis with none other than Sigmund Freud).