No More Learning

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 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.