This reissue of the classic Trilogy, by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle,
1886-1961), now includes a new introduction and a large section of
referential notes for readers and students, compiled by Professor Aliki
Barnstone. As civilian war poetry (written under the shattering impact
of World War II), Trilogy's three long poems rank with T. S. Eliot's
Four Quartets and Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos. The first book of the
Trilogy, published in the midst of the "fifty thousand incidents" of the
London blitz, maintains the hope that though "we have no map; / possibly
we will reach haven, /heaven." Tribute to the Angels describes new life
springing from the ruins, and finally, in The Flowering of the Rod -
with its epigram, .".. pause to give/ thanks that we rise again from
death and live" - faith in love and resurrection is realized in lyric
and strongly Biblical imagery.