Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics | Page 8

love, 5 And fashioned for desire,?Beauty, passion, and joy,?And sorrow and unrest;
And with all things of earth?Eternally must go, 10 Daring the perilous bourn?Of joyance and of death,
A strain of song by night,?A shadow on the hill,?A hint of odorous grass, 15 A murmur of the sea.
LVII
Others shall behold the sun?Through the long uncounted years,--?Not a maid in after time?Wise as thou!
For the gods have given thee?Their best gift, an equal mind 5 That can only love, be glad,?And fear not.
LVIII
Let thy strong spirit never fear,?Nor in thy virgin soul be thou afraid.?The gods themselves and the almightier fates?Cannot avail to harm
With outward and misfortunate chance 5 The radiant unshaken mind of him?Who at his being's centre will abide,?Secure from doubt and fear.
His wise and patient heart shall share?The strong sweet loveliness of all things made, 10 And the serenity of inward joy?Beyond the storm of tears.
LIX
Will none say of Sappho,?Speaking of her lovers,?And the love they gave her,--?Joy and days and beauty,?Flute-playing and roses, 5 Song and wine and laughter,--
Will none, musing, murmur,?"Yet, for all the roses,?All the flutes and lovers,?Doubt not she was lonely 10 As the sea, whose cadence?Haunts the world for ever."
LX
When I have departed,?Say but this behind me,?"Love was all her wisdom,?All her care.
"Well she kept love's secret,-- 5 Dared and never faltered,--?Laughed and never doubted?Love would win.
"Let the world's rough triumph?Trample by above her, 10 She is safe forever?From all harm.
"In a land that knows not?Bitterness nor sorrow,?She has found out all 15 Of truth at last."
LXI
There is no more to say now thou art still,?There is no more to do now thou art dead,?There is no more to know now thy clear mind?Is back returned unto the gods who gave it.
Now thou art gone the use of life is past, 5 The meaning and the glory and the pride,?There is no joyous friend to share the day,?And on the threshold no awaited shadow.
LXII
Play up, play up thy silver flute;?The crickets all are brave;?Glad is the red autumnal earth?And the blue sea.
Play up thy flawless silver flute; 5 Dead ripe are fruit and grain.?When love puts on his scarlet coat,?Put off thy care.
LXIII
A beautiful child is mine,?Formed like a golden flower,?Cleis the loved one.?And above her I value?Not all the Lydian land, 5 Nor lovely Hellas.
LXIV
Ah, but now henceforth?Only one meaning?Has life for me.
Only one purport,?Measure and beauty, 5 Has the bright world.
What mean the wood-winds,?Colour and morning,?Bird, stream, and hill?
And the brave city 10 With its enchantment??Thee, only thee!
LXV
Softly the wind moves through the radiant morning,?And the warm sunlight sinks into the valley,?Filling the green earth with a quiet joyance,?Strength, and fulfilment.
Even so, gentle, strong and wise and happy, 5 Through the soul and substance of my being,?Comes the breath of thy great love to me-ward,?O thou dear mortal.
LXVI
What the west wind whispers?At the end of summer,?When the barley harvest?Ripens to the sickle,?Who can tell? 5
What means the fine music?Of the dry cicada,?Through the long noon hours?Of the autumn stillness,?Who can say? 10
How the grape ungathered?With its bloom of blueness?Greatens on the trellis?Of the brick-walled garden,?Who can know? 15
Yet I, too, am greatened,?Keep the note of gladness,?Travel by the wind's road,?Through this autumn leisure,--?By thy love. 20
LXVII
Indoors the fire is kindled;?Beechwood is piled on the hearthstone;?Cold are the chattering oak-leaves;?And the ponds frost-bitten.
Softer than rainfall at twilight, 5 Bringing the fields benediction?And the hills quiet and greyness,?Are my long thoughts of thee.
How should thy friend fear the seasons??They only perish of winter 10 Whom Love, audacious and tender,?Never hath visited.
LXVIII
You ask how love can keep the mortal soul?Strong to the pitch of joy throughout the years.
Ask how your brave cicada on the bough?Keeps the long sweet insistence of his cry;
Ask how the Pleiads steer across the night 5 In their serene unswerving mighty course;
Ask how the wood-flowers waken to the sun,?Unsummoned save by some mysterious word;
Ask how the wandering swallows find your eaves?Upon the rain-wind with returning spring; 10
Ask who commands the ever-punctual tide?To keep the pendulous rhythm of the sea;
And you shall know what leads the heart of man?To the far haven of his hopes and fears.
LXIX
Like a tall forest were their spears,?Their banners like a silken sea,?When the great host in splendour passed?Across the crimson sinking sun.
And then the bray of brazen horns 5 Arose above their clanking march,?As the long waving column filed?Into the odorous purple dusk.
O lover, in this radiant world?Whence is the race of mortal men, 10 So frail, so mighty, and so fond,?That fleets into the vast unknown?
LXX
My lover smiled, "O friend, ask not?The journey's end, nor whence we are.?That whistling boy who minds his goats?So idly in the grey ravine,
"The brown-backed rower drenched with spray, 5 The lemon-seller in the street,?And the young girl who keeps her first?Wild love-tryst at the rising moon,--
"Lo, these are wiser