On Sunday, I posted and reviewed a poem by the Imagist Amy Lowell. Today, I am going to be “reviewing” a poem by my other favorite Imagist poet, Hilda Doolittle, who published under her initials, H.D.

H.D. (1886–1961) was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to a wealthy family and attended Bryn Mawr. A true Bohemian, she was engaged for a while to Ezra Pound and followed him to Europe. She married fellow Imagist poet Richard Aldington but had relationships with both men and women.

H.D. is often considered the “purest” of the Imagist poets. Her style is crystalline, stripped-down, and intense.

Here is her poem, “Evening.”

Enjoy!

EVENING
  by H.D.

The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower—
the hepaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint—
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.

The cornel-buds are still white,
but shadows dart
from the cornel-roots—
black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
shadow seeks shadow,
then both leaf
and leaf-shadow are lost.

LISTENING WITH A PENCIL AND MY EAR

Three things typically stand out in H.D.’s poetry:

• Hellenic Influence: She was obsessed with ancient Greece. Her poems often use Greek landscapes (cliffs, sea-grapes, rocks) and mythology to explore modern emotions, giving her work a timeless, “statuesque” quality.
• Sharp Images: She didn’t just describe things; she presented them with high-definition clarity. She preferred “hard” images over soft ones—think of cold salt spray, jagged rocks, or wind-beaten flowers.
• Inward Intensity: While her images are external, they are almost always metaphors for a fierce, internal state of being or a spiritual struggle.

The last two characteristics of her poetry stand out in this wonderful poem. Her images here are so sharp that they actually “cut another leaf of grass,” and the inward intensity is clear in the lines:

shadow seeks shadow,
then both leaf
and leaf-shadow are lost

.