Oread Poem Annotated

Commander of the Sea
The Imagist poem “Oread” by Hilda Doolittle portrays the image of an Oread, a mountain nymph of the forest, commanding the foreign sea to rise up and surround her. The poem opens with the nymph directing the sea to rise up to where she is located and continuously repeats the basic phrase of “Whirl up, sea” in synonymous words to demonstrate the persistence and stubbornness of the Oread. The Oread leaves room for questioning as to what exactly she is commanding, for she switches between calling it the sea and then types of trees, perhaps because she lacks the knowledge to properly classify the sea for what it is or because she simply finds it easier to refer to the unknown as something familiar.
In the initial stanza

of the poem, Doolittle establishes what exactly the Oread is speaking to, which is the sea. She states, “Whirl up, sea - “ (1). The Oread is asking the sea to rapidly turn and swirl up to her. While being whirled around can be fun, a whirling sea is typically an angry sea that is too dangerous to go near. The Oread then goes on to say, “Whirl your pointed pines,” (2). Pine trees are gigantic, and not to mention extremely heavy, but the nymph asks for the sea to whirl their waves, their big and heavy waves, and to rise to where she is.
In the next two stanzas, the poet continues building on the image of the Oread commanding the sea.

The speaker says, “Splash your great pines on our rocks,” (3, 4). The constant comparison of the sea’s waves to trees could be because the speaker has limited knowledge about anything other than the trees in the mountains, which she belongs to. The use of the word splash is more playful than the previous word choice. The next line reverts to the dark and malicious tone of the first lines. The Oread says, “ Hurl your green over us” (5). For the sea to hurl its waves up the mountain to the forest where the Oread is, it would take great force and would truly be a powerful and destructive wave. The Oread wishes to be engulfed by the wave, but she also insists on the wave covering not just her, but others that she refers to as “us”. The us is possibly referring to other Oreads but could really be anything in her general vicinity as she doesn't specify if others are with her. The final line of the poem once again switches to a lighter tone. The Oread asks the sea to, “Cover us with your pools of fir” (6). When someone is asked to cover another it's typically with a blanket to keep warm. The Oread asking the sea to cover “us” is a plea to be protectively surrounded by the waves of the

sea.
By following the rules of Imagism, the Imagist poem “Oread” by Hilda Doolittle has no specific rhythm or rhyme. The poem is in free verse to help get across the image without restraining or unnecessary words that drag down the poem. The lines of the poem can be said to represent waves in how they're similar but not exactly the same.