At Ithaca

Over and back,

the long waves crawl

and track the sand with foam;

night darkens and the sea

takes on that desperate tone

of dark that wives put on

when all their love is done.

Over and back,

the tangled thread falls slack,

over and up and on;

over and all is sewn;

now while I bind the end,

I wish some fiery friend

would sweep impetuously

these fingers from the loom.

My weary thoughts

play traitor to my soul,

just as the toil is over;

swift while the woof is whole,

turn now my spirit, swift,

and tear the pattern there,

the flowers so deftly wrought,

the borders of sea blue,

the sea-blue coast of home.

The web was over-fair,

that web of pictures there,

enchantments that I thought

he had, that I had lost;

weaving his happiness

within the stitching frame,

weaving his fire and frame,

I thought my work was done,

I prayed that only one

of those that I had spurned

might stoop and conquer this

long waiting with a kiss.

But each time that I see

my work so beautifully

inwoven and would keep

the picture and the whole,

Athene steels my soul.

Slanting across my brain,

I see as shafts of rain

his chariot and his shafts,

I see the arrows fall,

I see the lord who moves

like Hector lord of love,

I see him matched with fair

bright rivals, and I see

those lesser rivals flee.

Copyright Credit: Hilda Doolittle, "At Ithaca" from Heliodora and Other Poems. Copyright © 1924 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Public Domain.

Source: Heliodora and Other Poems (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1924)