Summary
The poem begins with the speaker beckoning the sea to "whirl up," comparing its waves to "pointed pines." She then commands the sea (who may be a symbol for a lover or Poseidon (the god of the sea), or a metaphor for a desired object), to splash its waves ("great pines") on the rocks of her coast. Based on the title of the poem, and the speaker's position on coastal, rocky land, the reader can assume the speaker is an oread—a mountain nymph from Greek mythology. The poem continues with her request that the sea "hurl" its green waves over the shore, and cover her and her fellow inhabitants with water. The poem ends with another command involving a pine tree metaphor, the speaker referring to the puddles left by the ocean on the rocky coast as "pools of fir."
Analysis:
This short, one-stanza poem consists of an outpouring of passion that is both proud and prostrate in its solicitation of the ocean. It is proud in its commands, ownership of the coastal territory ("our rocks"), and position as the inviter ("hurl your green over us / cover us..."); it is prostrate in its reverence and desire to be dominated. Although seemingly simple, the words in the poem beckon in a manner that is pleading, sensual, and full of ardor. The imagery and the mythical implications are highly specific to a certain scene, but the longing for contact and connection embodied in the one stanza speaks to a universal human experience. The speaker's choice to use a pine tree metaphor to describe the object of her desire fits the mythical landscape, given that pines are often found on mountainous terrain, and an oread is a mountain nymph. Worth noting, as well, is that the word "pine" also means "to yearn intensely and persistently, especially for something unattainable." In other words, the inclusion of the word "pine" may evoke more than just the image of a fir tree.
Critic Robert Duncan wrote that H.D.'s "nature" poems often contain a "poetic magic in which the natural environment and the sexual experience are fused." In this poem, the exchange seems traditional, in that the female receiver hopes to passively receive the strong, active, protective power of the male (in Greek mythology, Poseidon the ocean god is male). However, given that the female position is one of solicitation, demand, and fierce desire, the paradigm is in some sense reversed. Perhaps the poem serves to illustrate how power is fluid, and that a given subject contains both active and passive qualities. Further, the waves crashing upon the shore can be interpreted as an experience of sublime emotion, ecstasy, or exchange that is not necessarily sexual, but represents communication, contact, and connection. Also, the ending of the poem on the tenderness of the waves collecting in pools exhibits a caress of sorts. On some level the entities are equal; without an end to the coast there is no sea, and without an end to the sea, there is no land. Land and sea thus come together in an explosive meeting that is both vehement and peaceful; strange and anciently familiar.
Additionally, "Oread" in its inclusion of contraries and contradictions enacts what Freud would call the "condensation" that occurs in a dream or "dream-work"—elements of desire coming together in a way that may be conflicting or irrational, but that expresses frightening or intense impulses and feelings in a safe way. Critic Susan Friedman writes:
The condensation of imagist technique accomplishes just that fusion of opposites in "Oread." The poem's pronouns—"us" and "you"—establish the oppositions in the poem imaged in the land and the sea. The oread is the land, and consequently identifies with the shore and addresses the waves as "you." As the spirit of the land, she understandably perceives her fluid opposite in her own terms: waves are pointed pines that whirl up, crash, and make pools of fir. This nonrational mode of thought gives motion, fury, and a watery stillness to the land; conversely, it gives stature and stability to the sea. But these images condense opposites into a contradictory whole; they simultaneously affirm and deny the division of land and sea.
Though "Oread" is just a few lines, H.D. has left the reader with multiple registers of human experience: the complexities of power in an exchange, the ambivalence that comes with individuality, subjectivity, or lack of unity with the "other," and the simultaneous vulnerability and tenacity of desire. Further, she shows, through displacements (metaphor, myth) and diction ("cover us") the very relatable need for both catharsis and refuge.
