Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics | Page 9

than the wise.?And not for all our questioning 10 Shall we discover more than joy,?Nor find a better thing than love!
"Let pass the banners and the spears,?The hate, the battle, and the greed;?For greater than all gifts is peace, 15 And strength is in the tranquil mind."
LXXI
Ye who have the stable world?In the keeping of your hands.?Flocks and men, the lasting hills,?And the ever-wheeling stars;
Ye who freight with wondrous things 5 The wide-wandering heart of man?And the galleon of the moon,?On those silent seas of foam;
Oh, if ever ye shall grant?Time and place and room enough 10 To this fond and fragile heart?Stifled with the throb of love,
On that day one grave-eyed Fate,?Pausing in her toil, shall say,?"Lo, one mortal has achieved 15 Immortality of love!"
LXXII
I heard the gods reply:?"Trust not the future with its perilous chance;?The fortunate hour is on the dial now.
"To-day be wise and great,?And put off hesitation and go forth 5 With cheerful courage for the diurnal need.
"Stout be the heart, nor slow?The foot to follow the impetuous will,?Nor the hand slack upon the loom of deeds.
"Then may the Fates look up 10 And smile a little in their tolerant way,?Being full of infinite regard for men."
LXXIII
The sun on the tide, the peach on the bough,?The blue smoke over the hill,?And the shadows trailing the valley-side,?Make up the autumn day.
Ah, no, not half! Thou art not here 5 Under the bronze beech-leaves,?And thy lover's soul like a lonely child?Roams through an empty room.
LXXIV
If death be good,?Why do the gods not die??If life be ill,?Why do the gods still live?
If love be naught, 5 Why do the gods still love??If love be all,?What should men do but love?
LXXV
Tell me what this life means,?O my prince and lover,?With the autumn sunlight?On thy bronze-gold head?
With thy clear voice sounding 5 Through the silver twilight,--?What is the lost secret?Of the tacit earth?
LXXVI
Ye have heard how Marsyas,?In the folly of his pride,?Boasted of a matchless skill,--?When the great god's back was turned;
How his fond imagining 5 Fell to ashes cold and grey,?When the flawless player came?In serenity and light.
So it was with those I loved?In the years ere I loved thee. 10 Many a saying sounds like truth,?Until Truth itself is heard.
Many a beauty only lives?Until Beauty passes by,?And the mortal is forgot 15 In the shadow of the god.
LXXVII
Hour by hour I sit,?Watching the silent door.?Shadows go by on the wall,?And steps in the street.
Expectation and doubt 5 Flutter my timorous heart.?So many hurrying home--?And thou still away.
LXXVIII
Once in the shining street,?In the heart of a seaboard town,?As I waited, behold, there came?The woman I loved.
As when, in the early spring, 5 A daffodil blooms in the grass,?Golden and gracious and glad,?The solitude smiled.
LXXIX
How strange is love, O my lover!?With what enchantment and power?Does it not come upon mortals,?Learned or heedless!
How far away and unreal, 5 Faint as blue isles in a sunset?Haze-golden, all else of life seems,?Since I have known thee!
LXXX
How to say I love you:?What, if I but live it,?Were the use in that, love??Small, indeed.
Only, every moment 5 Of this waking lifetime?Let me be your lover?And your friend!
Ah, but then, as sure as?Blossom breaks from bud-sheath, 10 When along the hillside?Spring returns,
Golden speech should flower?From the soul so cherished,?And the mouth your kisses 15 Filled with fire.
LXXXI
Hark, love, to the tambourines?Of the minstrels in the street,?And one voice that throbs and soars?Clear above the clashing time!
Some Egyptian royal love-lilt, 5 Some Sidonian refrain,?Vows of Paphos or of Tyre,?Mount against the silver sun.
Pleading, piercing, yet serene,?Vagrant in a foreign town, 10 From what passion was it born,?In what lost land over sea?
LXXXII
Over the roofs the honey-coloured moon,?With purple shadows on the silver grass,
And the warm south-wind on the curving sea,?While we two, lovers past all turmoil now,
Watch from the window the white sails come in, 5 Bearing what unknown ventures safe to port!
So falls the hour of twilight and of love?With wizardry to loose the hearts of men,
And there is nothing more in this great world?Than thou and I, and the blue dome of dusk. 10
LXXXIII
In the quiet garden world,?Gold sunlight and shadow leaves?Flicker on the wall.
And the wind, a moment since,?With rose-petals strewed the path 5 And the open door.
Now the moon-white butterflies?Float across the liquid air,?Glad as in a dream;
And, across thy lover's heart, 10 Visions of one scarlet mouth?With its maddening smile.
LXXXIV
Soft was the wind in the beech-trees;?Low was the surf on the shore;?In the blue dusk one planet?Like a great sea-pharos shone.
But nothing to me were the sea-sounds, 5 The wind and the yellow star,?When over my breast the banner?Of your golden hair was spread.
LXXXV
Have you heard the news of Sappho's garden,?And the Golden Rose of Mitylene,?Which the bending brown-armed rowers lately?Brought from over sea, from lonely Pontus?
In a meadow by the river Halys,