Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONG by HILDA DOOLITTLE

Poet Analysis

First Line: YOU ARE AS GOLD
Last Line: CASTS LIGHT FOR A SHADOW.
Subject(s): BIBLE;
You are as gold
as the half-ripe grain
that merges to gold again,
as white as the white rain
that beats through
the half-opened flowers
of the great flower tufts
thick on the black limbs
of an Illyrian apple bough.
Can honey distill such fragrance
as your bright hair–
for your face is as fair as rain,
yet as rain that lies clear
on white honey-comb,
lends radiance to the white wax,
so your hair on your brow
casts light for a shadow.



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