Excerpts from: H.D. “Tribute to the Angels” 1945.

Swiftly re-light the flame,
Aphrodite, holy name,

Astarte, hull and spar
of wrecked ships lost your star,

forgot the light at dusk,
forgot the prayer at dawn;

return, O holiest one,
Venus whose name is kin

to venerate,
venerator¹.

∇

for I can say truthfully,
her veils were white as snow,

so as no fuller on earth
can white them; I can say

she looked beautiful, she looked lovely,
she was clothed with a garment

down to the foot, but it was not
girt about with a golden girdle,

there was no gold, no color
there was no gleam in the stuff

nor shadow of hem and seam,
as it fell to the floor; she bore

none of the usual attributes;
the Child was not with her².

∇

she must have been pleased with us,
who did not forego our heritage

at the grave-edge;
she must have been pleased

with the straggling company of the brush and quill
who did not deny their birthright;

she must have been pleased with us,
for she looked so kindly at us

under her drift of veils,
and she carried a book³.

∇

she carries a book but it is not
the tome of the ancient wisdom,

the pages, I imagine, are the blank pages
of the unwritten volume of the new⁴;

Reference: TRILOGY by H.D. Norman Holmes Pearson. NY: New Directions Books, 1973.

Notes

¹ “Tribute to the Angels” p.12, (1945) in Trilogy, p.75.

² “Tribute to the Angels” p. 32, (1945) in Trilogy, p.97.

³ “Tribute to the Angels” p.35, (1945) in Trilogy, p.100.

⁴ “Tribute to the Angels” p.38, (1945) in Trilogy, p.103.