The poem begins with the hyperbolic assertion that all of Greece hates the woman the rest of the stanza describes. Presumably, this is Helen of Troy who is a central figure in Greek mythology. The speaker physically describes what aspects of Helen Greece hates, which indirectly reveals that this may be the concept of Helen, or perhaps a statue of her. According to the speaker, Greece hates her eyes that do not move (statuesque), her white skin, her sheen that is like that of olives, where she stands (literally as a statue, or figuratively her status), and her white hands.
In the second stanza, the speaker increases the intensity of the presumed hatred by stating that Greeks "revile" the "wan" face of Helen when she smiles (perhaps in the way the Mona Lisa smiles, or perhaps in Greece's imagination). The speaker then notes that Greece hates Helen's face even more when it grows paler and more pallid as she remembers "past enchantments / and past ills," or perhaps while the Greeks imagine the same; the grammar is ambiguous.
In the last stanza, H.D. writes that "Greece sees, unmoved, / God's daughter," which, like the stanza above, contains ambiguous grammar. Either Helen is "unmoved" (she is the daughter of the god Zeus in Greek Mythology) or the Greek people are unmoved by her. Then the speaker expounds on Helen more, noting that she was the result of a loving union, She has beautiful feet that are "cool," and very slender knees. The last three lines indicate that Greece could love Helen "the maid," perhaps referring to the woman herself, if either she, or the statue of her, was made into ash and laid beneath "funereal" cypress trees.
