H.D. imagines the sea goddess Thetis arriving at an island shore. The speaker addresses her directly, describing how she will step along a paved parapet of amber and onyx, her white feet reflected in the polished stone and bound with crimson and gold. Every detail feels close and hushed: sea-grass and sand showing through the light, a white beach curved like a crescent moon or carved ivory. In the last lines, the sun angles through the sea and turns to amber on a dolphin’s back, on its jewelled halter and bridle. The mood is dreamlike and reverent, full of color and shine but also quiet. It feels less like a story than like watching a slow, glowing vision of the goddess being welcomed by the sea and shore.
Thetis — Summary
On the paved parapet you will step carefully from amber stones to onyx flecked with violet, mingled with light, half showing the sea-grass and sea-sand underneath, reflecting your white feet and the gay strap crimson as lily-buds of Arion, and the gold that binds your feet. You will pass beneath the island disk (and myrtle-wood, the carved support of it) and the white stretch of its white beach, curved as the moon crescent or ivory when some fine hand chisels it: when the sun slips through the far edge, there is rare amber through the sea, and flecks of it glitter on the dolphin's back and jewelled halter and harness and bit as he sways under it.