H.D.: Set Free to Prophesy 377That she had indeed touched the olive tree is proved by the eloquent poetical
finale that follows. Thus the voice of the prophet, though often bitter in
denunciation, is ultimately optimistic: the prophet believes that her people,
at least part of her people, can be saved—a remnant that can lead to a great
renewal.
The prophetic voice in Ion,released by Freud’s ministrations, may be
closely related to another remarkable poem that seems to come from this
same era: “A Dead Priestess Speaks,” the title poem of a collection of pieces
mostly datable from the 1930s, which H.D. arranged and sent over to
Norman Pearson, with a letter that helps to explain their meaning. On
March 16, 1949, she wrote to Pearson: “Now I have had typed, a series of
poems. I do not ‘place’ them, except as milestones on my way.... I call this
series, A Dead Priestess Speaks.That is the title of the first poem and rather
describes my own feelings.”^15
The title poem is the most significant and the richest of this group.
Exactly when it was written we cannot say. Since most of the other poems are
datable from the 1930s, one might assume that this one also comes from that
era, but its range and depth, and one reference to “a new war” after she has
spoken of an older war, would seem to suggest that the poem may at least
have been retouched as it became the title piece for this series. In any case
the reference to the Priestess as Delia of Miletus associates the poem closely
with H.D. in person, for Delia Alton was a favorite pen name, while Miletus
is the place where she came to be cured by the Master in her poem addressed
to Freud:
when I travelled to Miletus
to get wisdom,
I left all else behind ...
“every gesture is wisdom,”
he taught;
“nothing is lost,”
he said;
I went late to bed
or early,I caught the dream
and rose dreaming,
and we wrought philosophy on the dream content,
I was content.... (CP,451)