Poem by Hilda Doolittle

Nossis

I thought to hear him speak
the girl might rise
and make the garden silver,
as the white moon breaks,
“Nossis,” he cried, “a flame.”

I said:
“a girl that’s dead
some hundred years;
a poet--what of that?
for in the islands,
in the haunts of Greek Ionia,
Rhodes and Cyprus,
girls are cheap.”

I said, to test his mood,
to make him rage or laugh or sing or weep,
“in Greek Ionia and in Cyprus,
many girls are found
with wreaths and apple-branches.”

“Only a hundred years or two or three,
has she lain dead
yet men forget;”
he said,
“I want a garden,”
and I thought
he wished to make a terrace on the hill,
bend the stream to it,
set out daffodils,
plant Phrygian violets,
such was his will and whim,
I thought,
to name and watch each flower.

His was no garden
bright with Tyrian violets,
his was a shelter
wrought of flame and spirit,
and as he flung her name
against the dark,
I thought the iris-flowers
that lined the path
must be the ghost of Nossis.

“Who made the wreath,
for what man was it wrought?
speak, fashioned all of fruit-buds,
song, my loveliest,
say Meleager brought to Diodes,
(a gift for that enchanting friend)
memories with names of poets.

He sought for Moero, lilies,
and those many,
red-lilies for Anyte,
for Sappho, roses,
with those few, he caught
that breath of the sweet-scented
leaf of iris,
the myrrh-iris,
to set beside the tablet
and the wax
which Love had burnt,
when scarred across by Nossis.”

when she wrote:

“I Nossis stand by this:
I state that love is sweet:
if you think otherwise
assert what beauty
or what charm_
_after the charm of love,
retains its grace?

“Honey” you say:
honey? I say “I spit
honey out of my mouth:
nothing is second-best
after the sweet of Eros.”

I Nossis stand and state
that he whom Love neglects
has naught, no flower, no grace,
who lacks that rose, her kiss.”

I thought to hear him speak
the girl might rise
and make the garden silver
as the white moon breaks,
“Nossis,” he cried, “a flame.”

1. From Citron-Bower
2. After Troy
3. Holy Satyr
4. Thetis
5. The Mysteries Remain

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