| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920. 1920. |
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| The Islands |
| | | Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961) |
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I
WHAT are the Islands to me, | |
| what is Greece, | |
| what is Rhodes, Samos, Chios, | |
| what is Paros facing west, | |
| what is Crete? | 5 |
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| What is Samothrace, | |
| rising like a ship, | |
| what is Imbros redning the storm-waves | |
| with its breast? | |
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| What is Naxos, Paros, Milos, | 10 |
| what the circle about Lycia, | |
| what, the Cyclades’ | |
| white necklace? | |
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| What is Greece— | |
| Sparta, rising like a rock, | 15 |
| Thebes, Athens, | |
| what is Corinth? | |
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| What is Euboia | |
| with its island violets, | |
| what is Euboia, spread with grass, | 20 |
| set with swift shoals, | |
| what is Crete? | |
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| What are the islands to me, | |
| what is Greece? | |
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II
What can love of land give to me | 25 |
| that you have not— | |
| what do the tall Spartans know, | |
| and gentler Attic folk? | |
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| What has Sparta and her women | |
| more than this? | 30 |
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| What are the islands to me | |
| if you are lost— | |
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| What is Naxos, Tinos, Andros, | |
| and Delos, the clasp | |
| of the white necklace? | 35 |
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III
What can love of land give to me | |
| that you have not, | |
| what can love of strife break in me | |
| that you have not? | |
| Though Sparta enter Athens, | 40 |
| salt, rising to wreak terror | |
| Thebes wrack Sparta, | |
| each changes as water, | |
| and fall back. | |
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IV
“What has love of land given to you | 45 |
| that I have not?” | |
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| I have questioned Tyrians | |
| where they sat | |
| on the black ships, | |
| weighted with rich stuffs, | 50 |
| I have asked the Greeks | |
| from the white ships, | |
| and Greeks from ships whose hulks | |
| lay on the wet sand, scarlet | |
| with great beaks. | 55 |
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| I have asked bright Tyrians | |
| and tall Greeks— | |
| “what has love of land given you?” | |
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| And they answered—“peace.” | |
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V
But beauty is set apart, | 60 |
| beauty is cast by the sea, | |
| a barren rock, | |
| beauty is set about | |
| with wrecks of ships, | |
| upon our coasts, death keeps | 65 |
| the shallows—death waits | |
| clutching toward us | |
| from the deeps. | |
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| Beauty is set apart; | |
| the winds that slash its beach, | 70 |
| swirl the coarse sand | |
| upward toward the rocks. | |
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| Beauty is set apart | |
| from the islands | |
| and from Greece. | 75 |
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VI
In my garden, | |
| the winds have beaten | |
| the ripe lilies; | |
| in my garden, the salt | |
| has wilted the first flakes | 80 |
| of young narcissus, | |
| and the lesser hyacinth | |
| and the salt has crept | |
| under the leaves of the white hyacinth. | |
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| In my garden | 85 |
| even the wind-flowers lie fiat, | |
| broken by the wind at last. | |
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VII
What are the islands to me | |
| if you are lost, | |
| what is Paros to me | 90 |
| if your eyes draw back, | |
| what is Milos | |
| if you take fright of beauty, | |
| terrible, torturous, isolated, | |
| a barren rack? | 95 |
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| What is Rhodes, Crete, | |
| what is Paros facing west, | |
| what, white Imbros? | |
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| What are the islands to me | |
| if you hesitate, | 100 |
| what is Greece if you draw back | |
| from the terror | |
| and cold splendor of song | |
and its bleak sacrifice?
The North American Review | |
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