Helen

In Greek legend, the wife of Menelaus. Helen was abducted by the Trojan prince Paris which started the Trojan War. H.D. felt connected to Helen because she saw an image of herself in Helen. She was annoyed at the fact that the story of the Trojan War was told entirely from the male point of view. H.D. wrote her reflective epic of more than fourteen hundred lines, Helen in Egypt. This poem was written between 1951 and 1955 and consists of three books which follow Helen's mission.

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.

-1924