Modern American Poetry

H.D.: Set Free to Prophesy 381

But the question remains: “we passed the flame: we wonder / what saved us?
what for?” (CP,510–11).
Already the opening section has begun its tacit answer to that question,
as, in accord with the dedication, “for Karnack 1923 / from London 1942,”
the poem equates the opening of an Egyptian tomb with the “opening” of
churches and other buildings by the bombs:

there, as here, ruin opens

the tomb, the temple; enter,

there as here, there are no doors:

the shrine lies open to the sky ... (CP,509)

So too an opening happens in the mind, under the impact of disaster:

ruin everywhere, yet as the fallen roof

leaves the sealed room

open to the air,

so, through our desolation,

thoughts stir, inspiration stalks us

through gloom:

unaware, Spirit announces the Presence;

shivering overtakes us,

as of old, Samuel:

trembling at a known street-corner,

we know not nor are known;

the Pythian pronounces— (CP,509–10)

(The body of the poem is written in “Pythian” couplets, as I noted earlier,
but of course H.D. was well aware that biblical poetry was also composed in
couplets; as with Samuel and the Pythian, two traditions merge.)
The fourth section presents this opening in yet another way: reverting
to her old Imagist technique, she picks up the image of “that craftsman, / the
shellfish” and makes it represent the tough integrity of the artist, saying, “I
sense my own limit”—and yet know “the pull / of the tide.”

be firm in your own small, static, limited