# American Poetry 1922/Heliodora

HELIODORA
He and I sought together, over the spattered table, rhymes and flowers, gifts for a name.
He said, among others, I will bring (and the phrase was just and good, but not as good as mine) "the narcissus that loves the rain."
We strove for a name, while the light of the lamps burnt thin and the outer dawn came in, a ghost, the last at the feast or the first, to sit within with the two that remained to quibble in flowers and verse over a girl's name.
He said, "the rain loving," I said, "the narcissus, drunk, drunk with the rain."
Yet I had lost for he said,
"the rose, the lover's gift, is loved of love," he said it, "loved of love;" I waited, even as he spoke, to see the room filled with a light, as when in winter the embers catch in a wind when a room is dank: so it would be filled, I thought, our room with a light when he said (and he said it first) "the rose, the lover's delight, is loved of love," but the light was the same.
Then he caught, seeing the fire in my eyes, my fire, my fever, perhaps, for he leaned with the purple wine stained in his sleeve, and said this: "Did you ever think a girl's mouth caught in a kiss is a lily that laughs?"
I had not. I saw it now
as men must see it forever afterwards; no poet could write again, "the red-lily, a girl's laugh caught in a kiss;" it was his to pour in the vat from which all poets dip and quaff, for poets are brothers in this.
So I saw the fire in his eyes, it was almost my fire (he was younger) I saw the face so white; my heart beat, it was almost my phrase, I said, "surprise the muses, take them by surprise; it is late, rather it is dawn-rise, those ladies sleep, the nine, our own king's mistresses."
A name to rhyme, Bowers to bring to a name, what was one girl faint and shy, with eyes like the myrtle (I said: "her underlids are rather like myrtle"), to vie with the nine?
Let him take the name, he had the rhymes,
"the rose, loved of love," "the lily, a mouth that laughs," he had the gift, "the scented crocus, the purple hyacinth," what was one girl to the nine?
He said: "I will make her a wreath;" he said: "I will write it thus: 'I will bring you the lily that laughs, I will twine with soft narcissus, the myrtle, sweet crocus, white violet, the purple hyacinth and, last, the rose, loved of love, that these may drip on your hair the less soft flowers, may mingle sweet with the sweet of Heliodora's locks, myrrh-curled.'"
(He wrote myrrh-curled, I think, the first.)
I said: "they sleep, the nine," when he shouted swift and passionate: "that for the nine! Above the mountains
the sun is about to wake, and to-day white violets shine beside white lilies adrift on the mountain side; to-day the narcissus opens that loves the rain."
I watched him to the door, catching his robe as the wine-bowl crashed to the floor, spilling a few wet lees (ah, his purple hyacinth!); I saw him out of the door, I thought: there will never be a poet, in all the centuries after this, who will dare write, after my friend's verse, "a girl's mouth is a lily kissed."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1977, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 46 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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