Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics | Page 7

Even as she dreams her arms enfold me,?Half awaking with a hundred kisses?On the scarlet lily of her mouth.
XLVI
I seek and desire,?Even as the wind?That travels the plain?And stirs in the bloom?Of the apple-tree. 5
I wander through life,?With the searching mind?That is never at rest,?Till I reach the shade?Of my lover's door. 10
XLVII
Like torn sea-kelp in the drift?Of the great tides of the sea,?Carried past the harbour-mouth?To the deep beyond return,
I am buoyed and borne away 5 On the loveliness of earth,?Little caring, save for thee,?Past the portals of the night.
XLVIII
Fine woven purple linen?I bring thee from Phocaea,?That, beauty upon beauty,?A precious gift may cover?The lap where I have lain. 5
And a gold comb, and girdle,?And trinkets of white silver,?And gems are in my sea-chest,?Lest poor and empty-handed?Thy lover should return. 10
And I have brought from Tyre?A Pan-flute stained vermilion,?Wherein the gods have hidden?Love and desire and longing,?Which I shall loose for thee. 15
XLIX
When I am home from travel,?My eager foot will stay not?Until I reach the threshold?Where I went forth from thee.
And there, as darkness gathers 5 In the rose-scented garden,?The god who prospers music?Shall give me skill to play.
And thou shalt hear, all startled,?A flute blown in the twilight, 10 With the soft pleading magic?The green wood heard of old.
Then, lamp in hand, thy beauty?In the rose-marble entry!?And unreluctant Hermes 15 Shall give me words to say.
L
When I behold the pharos shine?And lay a path along the sea,?How gladly I shall feel the spray,?Standing upon the swinging prow;
And question of my pilot old, 5 How many watery leagues to sail?Ere we shall round the harbour reef?And anchor off the wharves of home!
LI
Is the day long,?O Lesbian maiden,?And the night endless?In thy lone chamber?In Mitylene? 5
All the bright day,?Until welcome evening?When the stars kindle?Over the harbour,?What tasks employ thee? 10
Passing the fountain?At golden sundown,?One of the home-going?Traffickers, hast thou?Thought of thy lover? 15
Nay, but how far?Too brief will the night be,?When I returning?To the dear portal?Hear my own heart beat! 20
LII
Lo, on the distance a dark blue ravine,?A fold in the mountainous forests of fir,?Cleft from the sky-line sheer down to the shore!
Above are the clouds and the white, pealing gulls,?At its foot is the rough broken foam of the sea, 5 With ever anon the long deep muffled roar,--?A sigh from the fitful great heart of the world.
Then inland just where the small meadow begins,?Well bulwarked with boulders that jut in the tide,?Lies safe beyond storm-beat the harbour in sun. 10
See where the black fishing-boats, each at its buoy,?Ride up on the swell with their dare-danger prows,?To sight o'er the sea-rim what venture may come!
And look, where the narrow white streets of the town?Leap up from the blue water's edge to the wood, 15 Scant room for man's range between mountain and sea,?And the market where woodsmen from over the hill?May traffic, and sailors from far foreign ports?With treasure brought in from the ends of the earth.
And see the third house on the left, with that gleam 20 Of red burnished copper--the hinge of the door?Whereat I shall enter, expected so oft?(Let love be your sea-star!), to voyage no more.
LIII
Art thou the top-most apple?The gatherers could not reach,?Reddening on the bough??Shall not I take thee?
Art thou a hyacinth blossom 5 The shepherds upon the hills?Have trodden into the ground??Shall not I lift thee?
Free is the young god Eros,?Paying no tribute to power, 10 Seeing no evil in beauty,?Full of compassion.
Once having found the beloved,?However sorry or woeful,?However scornful of loving, 15 Little it matters.
LIV
How soon will all my lovely days be over,?And I no more be found beneath the sun,--?Neither beside the many-murmuring sea,?Nor where the plain-winds whisper to the reeds,?Nor in the tall beech-woods among the hills 5 Where roam the bright-lipped Oreads, nor along?The pasture-sides where berry-pickers stray?And harmless shepherds pipe their sheep to fold!
For I am eager, and the flame of life?Burns quickly in the fragile lamp of clay. 10 Passion and love and longing and hot tears?Consume this mortal Sappho, and too soon?A great wind from the dark will blow upon me,?And I be no more found in the fair world,?For all the search of the revolving moon 15 And patient shine of everlasting stars.
LV
Soul of sorrow, why this weeping??What immortal grief hath touched thee?With the poignancy of sadness,--?Testament of tears?
Have the high gods deigned to show thee 5 Destiny, and disillusion?Fills thy heart at all things human,?Fleeting and desired?
Nay, the gods themselves are fettered?By one law which links together 10 Truth and nobleness and beauty,?Man and stars and sea.
And they only shall find freedom?Who with courage rise and follow?Where love leads beyond all peril, 15 Wise beyond all words.
LVI
It never can be mine?To sit in the door in the sun?And watch the world go by,?A pageant and a dream;
For I was born for