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To a Greek Marble

By Richard Aldington 1892–1962 Richard Aldington

Pótuia, pótuia

White grave goddess,

Pity my sadness,

O silence of Paros.

I am not of these about thy feet,

These garments and decorum;

I am thy brother,

Thy lover of aforetime crying to thee,

And thou hearest me not.

I have whispered thee in thy solitudes

Of our loves in Phrygia,

The far ecstasy of burning noons

When the fragile pipes

Ceased in the cypress shade,

And the brown fingers of the shepherd

Moved over slim shoulders;

And only the cicada sang.

I have told thee of the hills

And the lisp of reeds

And the sun upon thy breasts,

And thou hearest me not,

Pótuia, pótuia

Thou hearest me not.

Source: Poetry (November 1912).

Biography

Richard Aldington was prominent in several literary capacities; most notably as a founding poet of the Imagist movement and as a novelist who conveyed the horror of World War I through his written works. He was also a prolific critic, translator, and essayist. Though he considered his novels to be his most important works, he received much critical attention for his biographies of such contemporaries as Lawrence of Arabia and D. . . .

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