The Mysteries Remain

The mysteries remain,

I keep the same 

cycle of seed-time

 and of sun and rain; 

Demeter in the grass,

 I multiply

 renew and bless

 Iacchus in the vine;

 I hold the law,

 I keep the mysteries true,

 the first of these

 to name the living, the dead;

 I am red wine and bread.

         I keep the law,

        I hold the mysteries true,

       I am the vine,

      the branches, you

       and you.

----H.D.

 Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), who wrote under the name of H.D. for all of her long and eventful life, was born into a wealthy Moravian family in Pennsylvania, but grew up in England. In her teens she met Ezra Pound and her early poems became central to the Imagist movement, which some scholars consider the beginning of Modernism in poetry. Her work is heavily influenced by Greek mythology and her reading of Sappho, later accommodating Christian themes from her childhood. 

 In this poem, Demeter is the Greek goddess of the harvest and resulting grains and other foods, as well as fertility in general. Iacchus was an obscure Greek deity, often associated with Dionysus, god of wine. He is variously described as the son of Dionysus, and/or the son of Demeter, and in some accounts, her husband.