Archaeology Poetry: Delos - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Delos	"Shall I Compare Thee to a Backfill Pile?" April 27, 2000
by Frances Minturn Howard

Abandonment is written on the bones
Of Apollo's birthplace. What more disconsolate
Than a set of roadways leading to nothing? For what
Are these seven noble lions waiting,
Carved from white Naxian marble, stretched
Like a reviewing line along the border,
Earless and eyeless from long wind and rain?
Why this odd feeling of expectancy?

The air, fine-grained with brightness, polishes
With a lost glory all the lavish wreck
Of what was here. Bewitched, in readiness--
That's what one is struck by--the long quiescence
Not of a spot abandoned and deserted
But of an infinitely patient waiting,
As if some promise left here held a power
Centuries of desertion could not break.

An air almost festive haunts the deserted courtyards,
Dolphins in graceful tiles, a lion
Escaped from a dream, sea-gods and goddesses
Tritons and shells and leaping water-monsters,
A gate ajar, as if it expected someone,
Shells, flowers, fruit, spelled out in fine mosaic.
Almost you hear the fountains begin to play,
Almost you hear light footfalls in the garden.

A marble foot from a long-vanished body
Stands planted vast and perfect as a star--
The foot of a god, who could walk from island to island
As if on stepping-stones. Swift-flowering in his prints
Came spring--and never such another,
When a god lived here, and earth and sea were young
And shone together in the morning light--
All other springs were copies of the first.

For more on the ancient site of Delos, see "Thessaloniki Brothel," May/June 1998.

Back to Reader Mail