Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode | Page 7

all the fountains of the sea
Have waves
enough to quench it, nor on earth
Is fuel enough to feed,
While day
sows night and night sows day for seed.
We were not marked for sorrow, thou nor I,
For joy nor sorrow, sister,
were we made,
To take delight and grief to live and die,
Assuaged
by pleasures or by pains affrayed

That melt men's hearts and alter; we
retain
A memory mastering pleasure and all pain,
A spirit within
the sense of ear and eye,
A soul behind the soul, that seeks and sings

And makes our life move only with its wings
And feed but from its

lips, that in return
Feed of our hearts wherein the old fires that burn

Have strength not to consume
Nor glory enough to exalt us past our
doom.
_Ah, ah, the doom_ (thou knowest whence rang that wail)
_Of the
shrill nightingale!_
(From whose wild lips, thou knowest, that wail
was thrown)
_For round about her have the great gods cast
A
wing-borne body, and clothed her close and fast
With a sweet life that
hath no part in moan.
But me, for me_ (how hadst thou heart to hear?)

_Remains a sundering with the two-edged spear._
_Ah, for her doom!_ so cried in presage then
The bodeful bondslave
of the king of men,
And might not win her will.
Too close the
entangling dragnet woven of crime,
The snare of ill new-born of elder
ill,
The curse of new time for an elder time,
Had caught, and held
her yet,
Enmeshed intolerably in the intolerant net,
Who thought
with craft to mock the God most high,
And win by wiles his crown of
prophecy
From the Sun's hand sublime,
As God were man, to spare
or to forget.
But thou,--the gods have given thee and forgiven thee
More than our
master gave
That strange-eyed spirit-wounded strange-tongued slave

There questing houndlike where the roofs red-wet
Reeked as a wet
red grave.
Life everlasting has their strange grace given thee,
Even
hers whom thou wast wont to sing and serve
With eyes, but not with
song, too swift to swerve;
Yet might not even thine eyes estranged
estrange her,
Who seeing thee too, but inly, burn and bleed
Like
that pale princess-priest of Priam's seed,
For stranger service gave
thee guerdon stranger;
If this indeed be guerdon, this indeed
Her
mercy, this thy meed--
That thou, being more than all we born, being
higher
Than all heads crowned of him that only gives
The light
whereby man lives,

The bay that bids man moved of God's desire

Lay hand on lute or lyre,
Set lip to trumpet or deflowered green reed--

If this were given thee for a grace indeed,
That thou, being first of

all these, thou alone
Shouldst have the grace to die not, but to live

And lose nor change one pulse of song, one tone
Of all that were thy
lady's and thine own,
Thy lady's whom thou criedst on to forgive,

Thou, priest and sacrifice on the altar-stone
Where none may worship
not of all that live,
Love's priestess, errant on dark ways diverse;
If
this were grace indeed for Love to give,
If this indeed were blessing
and no curse.
Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song,
Song's priestess, mad
with joy and pain of love,
Name above all names that are lights above,

We have loved, praised, pitied, crowned and done thee wrong, O
thou past praise and pity; thou the sole
Utterly deathless, perfect only
and whole
Immortal, body and soul.
For over all whom time hath
overpast
The shadow of sleep inexorable is cast,
The implacable
sweet shadow of perfect sleep
That gives not back what life gives
death to keep;
Yea, all that lived and loved and sang and sinned
Are
all borne down death's cold sweet soundless wind
That blows all
night and knows not whom its breath,
Darkling, may touch to death:

But one that wind hath touched and changed not,--one
Whose body
and soul are parcel of the sun;
One that earth's fire could burn not, nor
the sea
Quench; nor might human doom take hold on thee;
All
praise, all pity, all dreams have done thee wrong,
All love, with eyes
love-blinded from above;
Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of
love,
Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song.
Hast thou none other answer then for me
Than the air may have of
thee,
Or the earth's warm woodlands girdling with green girth
Thy
secret sleepless burning life on earth,
Or even the sea that once, being
woman crowned
And girt with fire and glory of anguish round,

Thou wert so fain to seek to, fain to crave
If she would hear thee and
save
And give thee comfort of thy great green grave?

Because I
have known thee always who thou art,
Thou knowest, have known
thee to thy heart's own heart,
Nor ever have given light ear to storied

song
That did thy sweet name sweet unwitting wrong,
Nor ever
have called thee nor would call for shame,
Thou knowest, but inly by
thine only name,
Sappho--because I have known thee and loved, hast
thou
None other answer now?
As brother and sister were we, child
and bird,
Since thy first Lesbian word
Flamed on me, and I knew
not whence I knew
This was the song