September 10, 1886 – Hilda Dolittle born, pen name H.D., American poet and novelist, known for avant-garde poetry, literary editor of  The Egoist journal during WWI, frequently used Greek mythology and insights from psychoanalysis in her work; H.D.’s work was on its way to being forgotten when the Second Wave of Feminism launched Women’s Studies and Arts and History programs, and new-made women scholars re-discovered her.

To read H.D.’s poem “The Walls DoNot Fall, XIV” click:

from The Walls Do Not Fall

by H.D.

XIV.

Yet we, the latter-day twice-born,
have our bad moments when

dragging the forlorn
husk of  self after us,

we are forced to confess to
malaise and embarrassment;

we pull at this dead shell,
struggle but we must wait

til the new Sun dries off
the old-body humours;

awkwardly, we drag this stale
old will, old volition, old habit

about with us;
we are these people

wistful, ironical, wilful
who have no part in

new-world reconstruction,
in the confederacy of labour,

the practical issues of art
and the cataloguing of utilities:

O, do not look up
into the air,

you who are occupied
in the bewildering

sand-heap maze
of present-day endeavour;

you will be, not so much frightened
as paralysed with inaction.

and anyhow,
we have not crawled so very far

up our individual grass-blade
toward our individual star.

“The Walls Do Not Fall, XIV” from Collected Poems 1912-1944, © 1982 by the Estate of Hilda Dolittle – New Directions, Eighth Printing

Visual: Circe Invidiosa (detail) by John Waterhouse (1892)