The poet H.D. is, as far as I can tell, someone people love to love as an example of a fabulous unconventional lifestyle; charismatic, independent, muse to Ezra Pound, analysand of Freud, lover to all manner of interesting people of both genders. Her poetry is a little less understood; it is, I think, generally thought of as being somewhat formal in the classical style, and thus if not exactly dismissed (too many lightly erotic lines to quote for that), neither admitted to the level of something great.

But I think something entirely different happens if you read it aloud. And really, this doesn't work if you read only with your eyes, even if you think it might. Does anyone else have this experience?

3
Ah, love is bitter and sweet,
but which is more sweet,
the sweetness
or the bitterness?
none has spoken it.

Love is bitter,
but can salt taint sea flowers,
grief, happiness?

Is it bitter to give back
love to your lover
if he crave it?

Is it bitter to give back
love to your lover
if he wish it
for a new favourite?
who can say,
or is it sweet?

Is it sweet
to possess utterly?
or is it bitter,
bitter as ash?

4
I had thought myself frail;
a petal,
with light equal
on leaf and under leaf.

I had thought myself frail;
a lamp,
shell, ivory, or crust of pearl;
about to fall shattered,
with flame spent.

I cried:
"I must perish,
I am deserted,
an outcast, desperate
in this darkness,"
(such fire rent me with Hesperus,)
then the day broke.

5
What need of a lamp
when day lightens us,
what need to bind love
when love stands
with such radiant wings
over us?

What need--
yet to sing love,
love must first shatter us.