We Two

We two are left:

I with small grace reveal

distaste and bitterness; 

you with small patience

take my hands;

though effortless, 

you scald their weight

as a bowl, lined with embers,

wherein droop 

great petals of white rose,

forced by the heat

too soon to break.

We two are left:

as a blank wall, the world,

earth and the men who talk,

saying their space of life

is good and gracious, 

with eyes blank

as that blank surface 

their ignorance mistakes

for final shelter

and a resting-place. 

We two remain:

yet by what miracle,

searching within the tangles of my brain,

I ask again,

have we two met within

this maze of dædal paths

in-wound mid grievous stone,

where once I stood alone?

H.D.

(Hilda Doolittle)