A CERTAIN SPRING (H.D. EXCERPT)

 

delicate the weave,

fair the thread:

clear the colours,

apple-leaf green,

ox-heart  blood-red:

rare the texture

woven from wild ram,

sea-bred horned sheep:

 

the stallion and his mare,

unbridled, with arrow-pattern,

are worked on

the blue cloth

Note:  The above excerpt from H.D.'s 1957 poem Fair The Thread appears in Guy Davenport's introduction to his 7 Greeks translations volume.  Davenport cites the lines as an example of a conscious imitation by H.D. of Sappho.  The entire poem contains only a few additional lines, which appear at the poem's beginning and end.  

Davenport's point is a valid one and interestingly, I think, this abridgement is a better, more powerful and affecting poem, than H.D.'s original, integral version.