Modern American Poetry

(^384) Louis L. Martz
praises of seven angels whose seven golden bowls pour out the wrath of God
upon the earth, H.D. calls on seven angels whose presence in war-torn
London is a testament to the promise of rebirth that her bowl holds.”^20
She writes because she has been privileged to witness an apocalyptic
scene of war in the heavens such as no earlier generation had seen, and more
than this, she has watched with all the others who
with unbowed head, watched
and though unaware, worshipped
and knew not that they worshipped
and that they were
that which they worshipped ... ( CP,551)
That is, the very spirit “of strength, endurance, anger / in their hearts.” Out
of all this her visions appear: “where the red-death fell / ... the lane is empty
but the levelled wall / is purple as with purple spread / upon an altar”—but
this is not the sacrifice of blood: “this is the flowering of the rood, / this is
the flowering of the reed” (CP,551). Thus in her wordplay the rod of Aaron
and the cross of Christ are merged; the reed that struck Christ merges with
the reed of the Nile earlier mentioned, with overtones of music and of
poetry. Now the poetry shows an alchemical change, as “a word most bitter,
marah,” changes into “mer, mere, mère, mater, Maia, Mary, / Star of the Sea,
/ Mother,” and this star changes into “Venus, Aphrodite, Astarte, / star of the
east, / star of the west” (CP,552–53), as the crucible of the mind creates a
jewel
green-white, opalescent,
with under-layer of changing blue,
with rose-vein; a white agate
with a pulse uncooled that beats yet,
faint blue-violet;
it lives, it breathes,
it gives off—fragrance? (CP,554)
It is an image that suggests a concentration of creative power in a mind