Analysis of "Sea Rose" by H.D.

 Poem found here:  "Sea Rose" by H.D.

Sea Rose.  This is the type of poem where I wonder how the genus name influences the poem.  Orphium.  A name derived from the tale of a musician/poet sent down to save his love Eurydice as long as he believed she was behind him, but he had to look back.  

However, H.D. is an imagist, so I believe this poem is an ars poetica in a sense.  I think this poem is trying to go against the symbol of the sea rose just to focus on the image.  Actually, the poem is a comparison between both the image of the sea rose versus a spice-rose.

Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf.

There's so much negative connotation here, "harsh," "marred," "meagre," "sparse," that the tone of the poem feels like it's condemning it's subject.  The visual sight of the sea rose is nothing much.  With so much negation, the stanza leads up to a comparison or a twist in the next stanza.

more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem--
you are caught in the drift

I was looking up what wet rose meant, but I think I'm thinking too hard about it.  The wet rose is just a wet rose.  The qualifier of precious given to the sea rose feels like a Shakespearian "my mistress eyes is nothing like the sun" -- a build of the negative into the a personal appreciation, but not sentimental.  When the poem turns to the "you" there is a possibility to turn the poem into a metaphor; however, I think the next stanza redirects the reader to follow the trajectory of the image rather than play with the idea of a metaphor, but by a slim margin.

Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.

 The image is followed all the way through from drift, to the sand, and lifted from the sand by the wind.  Even if metaphor was in play here which might appeal to the idea of Orpheus or even metaphor itself, it doesn't lead anywhere.  What I see in these lines is movement and a movement.  Value what is shown.  Value what is moving along.  Enjoy the moment of a flower just coasting along.  What drives this idea for me is the rhetorical question at the end of the poem.

Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?

This final stanza is a metaphor wrapped in a rhetorical question.  When the speaker refers to the spice-rose, I feel the speaker refers to the symbol of the spice-rose, and when it's hardened in the leaf -- dead -- where is the smell?  Where is the beauty in the last moments like the sea rose in its death knell?  Movement versus a moment.