The Wind Sleepers

Hilda Doolittle

Whiter
than the crust
left by the tide,
We are stung by the hurled sand
and the broken shells.

We no longer sleep,
sleep in the wind.
We awoke and fled
through the Peiraeic gate.

Tear—
tear us an altar.
Tug at the cliff-boulders,
pile them with the rough stones.
We no longer
sleep in the wind.
Propitiate us.

Chant in a wail
that never halts.
Pace a circle and pay tribute
with a song.

When the roar of a dropped wave
breaks into it,
pour meted words
of sea-hawks and gulls
and sea-birds that cry
discords.