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. Epigrams
2. Holy Satyr
3. At Ithaca
4. Cities
5. From Citron-Bower

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