Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics | Page 6

fine sandal,?And there love thee with sweet service?All my whole life long. 15
I would freshen it with flowers,?And the piney hill-wind through it?Should be sweetened with soft fervours?Of small prayers in gentle language?Thou wouldst smile to hear. 20
And a tinkling Eastern wind-bell,?With its fluttering inscription,?From the rafters with bronze music?Should retard the quiet fleeting?Of uncounted hours. 25
And my hero, while so human,?Should be even as the gods are,?In that shrine of utter gladness,?With the tranquil stars above it?And the sea below. 30
XXXIII
Never yet, love, in earth's lifetime,?Hath any cunningest minstrel?Told the one seventh of wisdom,?Ravishment, ecstasy, transport,?Hid in the hue of the hyacinth's 5 Purple in springtime.
Not in the lyre of Orpheus,?Not in the songs of Musaeus,?Lurked the unfathomed bewitchment?Wrought by the wind in the grasses, 10 Held by the rote of the sea-surf,?In early summer.
Only to exquisite lovers,?Fashioned for beauty's fulfilment,?Mated as rhythm to reed-stop 15 Whence the wild music is moulded,?Ever appears the full measure?Of the world's wonder.
XXXIV
"Who was Atthis?" men shall ask,?When the world is old, and time?Has accomplished without haste?The strange destiny of men.
Haply in that far-off age 5 One shall find these silver songs,?With their human freight, and guess?What a lover Sappho was.
XXXV
When the great pink mallow?Blossoms in the marshland,?Full of lazy summer?And soft hours,
Then I hear the summons 5 Not a mortal lover?Ever yet resisted,?Strange and far.
In the faint blue foothills,?Making magic music, 10 Pan is at his love-work?On the reeds.
I can guess the heart-stop,?Fall and lull and sequence,?Full of grief for Syrinx 15 Long ago.
Then the crowding madness,?Wild and keen and tender,?Trembles with the burden?Of great joy. 20
Nay, but well I follow,?All unskilled, that fluting.?Never yet was reed-nymph?Like to thee.
XXXVI
When I pass thy door at night?I a benediction breathe:?"Ye who have the sleeping world?In your care,
"Guard the linen sweet and cool, 5 Where a lovely golden head?With its dreams of mortal bliss?Slumbers now!"
XXXVII
Well I found you in the twilit garden,?Laid a lover's hand upon your shoulder,?And we both were made aware of loving?Past the reach of reason to unravel,?Or the much desiring heart to follow. 5
There we heard the breath among the grasses?And the gurgle of soft-running water,?Well contented with the spacious starlight,?The cool wind's touch and the deep blue distance,?Till the dawn came in with golden sandals. 10
XXXVIII
Will not men remember us?In the days to come hereafter,--?Thy warm-coloured loving beauty?And my love for thee?
Thou, the hyacinth that grows 5 By a quiet-running river;?I, the watery reflection?And the broken gleam.
XXXIX
I grow weary of the foreign cities,?The sea travel and the stranger peoples.?Even the clear voice of hardy fortune?Dares me not as once on brave adventure.
For the heart of man must seek and wander, 5 Ask and question and discover knowledge;?Yet above all goodly things is wisdom,?And love greater than all understanding.
So, a mariner, I long for land-fall,--?When a darker purple on the sea-rim, 10 O'er the prow uplifted, shall be Lesbos?And the gleaming towers of Mitylene.
XL
Ah, what detains thee, Phaon,?So long from Mitylene,?Where now thy restless lover?Wearies for thy coming?
A fever burns me, Phaon; 5 My knees quake on the threshold,?And all my strength is loosened,?Slack with disappointment.
But thou wilt come, my Phaon,?Back from the sea like morning, 10 To quench in golden gladness?The ache of parted lovers.
XLI
Phaon, O my lover,?What should so detain thee,
Now the wind comes walking?Through the leafy twilight?
All the plum-leaves quiver 5 With the coolth and darkness,
After their long patience?In consuming ardour.
And the moving grasses?Have relief; the dew-drench 10
Comes to quell the parching?Ache of noon they suffered.
I alone of all things?Fret with unsluiced fire.
And there is no quenching 15 In the night for Sappho,
Since her lover Phaon?Leaves her unrequited.
XLII
O heart of insatiable longing,?What spell, what enchantment allures thee?Over the rim of the world?With the sails of the sea-going ships?
And when the rose-petals are scattered 5 At dead of still noon on the grass-plot,?What means this passionate grief,--?This infinite ache of regret?
XLIII
Surely somehow, in some measure,?There will be joy and fulfilment,--?Cease from this throb of desire,--?Even for Sappho!
Surely some fortunate hour 5 Phaon will come, and his beauty?Be spent like water to plenish?Need of that beauty!
Where is the breath of Poseidon,?Cool from the sea-floor with evening? 10 Why are Selene's white horses?So long arriving?
XLIV
O but my delicate lover,?Is she not fair as the moonlight??Is she not supple and strong?For hurried passion?
Has not the god of the green world, 5 In his large tolerant wisdom,?Filled with the ardours of earth?Her twenty summers?
Well did he make her for loving;?Well did he mould her for beauty; 10 Gave her the wish that is brave?With understanding.
"O Pan, avert from this maiden?Sorrow, misfortune, bereavement,?Harm, and unhappy regret," 15 Prays one fond mortal.
XLV
Softer than the hill-fog to the forest?Are the loving hands of my dear lover,?When she sleeps beside me in the starlight?And her beauty drenches me with rest.
As the quiet mist enfolds the beech-trees, 5