LXXXI
Hark, love, to the tambourines
Of the minstrels in the street,
And one voice that throbs and soars
Clear above the clashing time!
Hark, love, to the tambourines
Of the minstrels in the street,
And one voice that throbs and soars
Clear above the clashing time!
Sappho
10
Many a saying sounds like truth,
Until Truth itself is heard.
Many a beauty only lives
Until Beauty passes by,
And the mortal is forgot 15
In the shadow of the god.
LXXVII
Hour by hour I sit,
Watching the silent door.
Shadows go by on the wall,
And steps in the street.
Expectation and doubt 5
Flutter my timorous heart.
So many hurrying home--
And thou still away.
LXXVIII
Once in the shining street,
In the heart of a seaboard town,
As I waited, behold, there came
The woman I loved.
As when, in the early spring, 5
A daffodil blooms in the grass,
Golden and gracious and glad,
The solitude smiled.
LXXIX
How strange is love, O my lover!
With what enchantment and power
Does it not come upon mortals,
Learned or heedless!
How far away and unreal, 5
Faint as blue isles in a sunset
Haze-golden, all else of life seems,
Since I have known thee!
LXXX
How to say I love you:
What, if I but live it,
Were the use in that, love?
Small, indeed.
Only, every moment 5
Of this waking lifetime
Let me be your lover
And your friend!
Ah, but then, as sure as
Blossom breaks from bud-sheath, 10
When along the hillside
Spring returns,
Golden speech should flower
From the soul so cherished,
And the mouth your kisses 15
Filled with fire.
LXXXI
Hark, love, to the tambourines
Of the minstrels in the street,
And one voice that throbs and soars
Clear above the clashing time!
Some Egyptian royal love-lilt, 5
Some Sidonian refrain,
Vows of Paphos or of Tyre,
Mount against the silver sun.
Pleading, piercing, yet serene,
Vagrant in a foreign town, 10
From what passion was it born,
In what lost land over sea?
LXXXII
Over the roofs the honey-coloured moon,
With purple shadows on the silver grass,
And the warm south-wind on the curving sea,
While we two, lovers past all turmoil now,
Watch from the window the white sails come in, 5
Bearing what unknown ventures safe to port!
So falls the hour of twilight and of love
With wizardry to loose the hearts of men,
And there is nothing more in this great world
Than thou and I, and the blue dome of dusk. 10
LXXXIII
In the quiet garden world,
Gold sunlight and shadow leaves
Flicker on the wall.
And the wind, a moment since,
With rose-petals strewed the path 5
And the open door.
Now the moon-white butterflies
Float across the liquid air,
Glad as in a dream;
And, across thy lover's heart, 10
Visions of one scarlet mouth
With its maddening smile.
LXXXIV
Soft was the wind in the beech-trees;
Low was the surf on the shore;
In the blue dusk one planet
Like a great sea-pharos shone.
But nothing to me were the sea-sounds, 5
The wind and the yellow star,
When over my breast the banner
Of your golden hair was spread.
LXXXV
Have you heard the news of Sappho's garden,
And the Golden Rose of Mitylene,
Which the bending brown-armed rowers lately
Brought from over sea, from lonely Pontus?
In a meadow by the river Halys, 5
Where some wood-god hath the world in keeping,
On a burning summer noon they found her,
Lovely as a Dryad, and more tender.
Her these eyes have seen, and not another
Shall behold, till time takes all things goodly, 10
So surpassing fair and fond and wondrous,--
Such a slave as, worth a great king's ransom,
No man yet of all the sons of mortals
But would lose his soul for and regret not;
So hath Beauty compassed all her children 15
With the cords of longing and desire.
Only Hermes, master of word music,
Ever yet in glory of gold language
Could ensphere the magical remembrance
Of her melting, half sad, wayward beauty, 20
Or devise the silver phrase to frame her,
The inevitable name to call her,
Half a sigh and half a kiss when whispered,
Like pure air that feeds a forge's hunger.
Not a painter in the Isles of Hellas 25
Could portray her, mix the golden tawny
With bright stain of poppies, or ensanguine
Like the life her darling mouth's vermilion,
So that, in the ages long hereafter,
When we shall be dust of perished summers, 30
Any man could say who found that likeness,
Smiling gently on it, "This was Gorgo! "
LXXXVI
Love is so strong a thing,
The very gods must yield,
When it is welded fast
With the unflinching truth.
Many a saying sounds like truth,
Until Truth itself is heard.
Many a beauty only lives
Until Beauty passes by,
And the mortal is forgot 15
In the shadow of the god.
LXXVII
Hour by hour I sit,
Watching the silent door.
Shadows go by on the wall,
And steps in the street.
Expectation and doubt 5
Flutter my timorous heart.
So many hurrying home--
And thou still away.
LXXVIII
Once in the shining street,
In the heart of a seaboard town,
As I waited, behold, there came
The woman I loved.
As when, in the early spring, 5
A daffodil blooms in the grass,
Golden and gracious and glad,
The solitude smiled.
LXXIX
How strange is love, O my lover!
With what enchantment and power
Does it not come upon mortals,
Learned or heedless!
How far away and unreal, 5
Faint as blue isles in a sunset
Haze-golden, all else of life seems,
Since I have known thee!
LXXX
How to say I love you:
What, if I but live it,
Were the use in that, love?
Small, indeed.
Only, every moment 5
Of this waking lifetime
Let me be your lover
And your friend!
Ah, but then, as sure as
Blossom breaks from bud-sheath, 10
When along the hillside
Spring returns,
Golden speech should flower
From the soul so cherished,
And the mouth your kisses 15
Filled with fire.
LXXXI
Hark, love, to the tambourines
Of the minstrels in the street,
And one voice that throbs and soars
Clear above the clashing time!
Some Egyptian royal love-lilt, 5
Some Sidonian refrain,
Vows of Paphos or of Tyre,
Mount against the silver sun.
Pleading, piercing, yet serene,
Vagrant in a foreign town, 10
From what passion was it born,
In what lost land over sea?
LXXXII
Over the roofs the honey-coloured moon,
With purple shadows on the silver grass,
And the warm south-wind on the curving sea,
While we two, lovers past all turmoil now,
Watch from the window the white sails come in, 5
Bearing what unknown ventures safe to port!
So falls the hour of twilight and of love
With wizardry to loose the hearts of men,
And there is nothing more in this great world
Than thou and I, and the blue dome of dusk. 10
LXXXIII
In the quiet garden world,
Gold sunlight and shadow leaves
Flicker on the wall.
And the wind, a moment since,
With rose-petals strewed the path 5
And the open door.
Now the moon-white butterflies
Float across the liquid air,
Glad as in a dream;
And, across thy lover's heart, 10
Visions of one scarlet mouth
With its maddening smile.
LXXXIV
Soft was the wind in the beech-trees;
Low was the surf on the shore;
In the blue dusk one planet
Like a great sea-pharos shone.
But nothing to me were the sea-sounds, 5
The wind and the yellow star,
When over my breast the banner
Of your golden hair was spread.
LXXXV
Have you heard the news of Sappho's garden,
And the Golden Rose of Mitylene,
Which the bending brown-armed rowers lately
Brought from over sea, from lonely Pontus?
In a meadow by the river Halys, 5
Where some wood-god hath the world in keeping,
On a burning summer noon they found her,
Lovely as a Dryad, and more tender.
Her these eyes have seen, and not another
Shall behold, till time takes all things goodly, 10
So surpassing fair and fond and wondrous,--
Such a slave as, worth a great king's ransom,
No man yet of all the sons of mortals
But would lose his soul for and regret not;
So hath Beauty compassed all her children 15
With the cords of longing and desire.
Only Hermes, master of word music,
Ever yet in glory of gold language
Could ensphere the magical remembrance
Of her melting, half sad, wayward beauty, 20
Or devise the silver phrase to frame her,
The inevitable name to call her,
Half a sigh and half a kiss when whispered,
Like pure air that feeds a forge's hunger.
Not a painter in the Isles of Hellas 25
Could portray her, mix the golden tawny
With bright stain of poppies, or ensanguine
Like the life her darling mouth's vermilion,
So that, in the ages long hereafter,
When we shall be dust of perished summers, 30
Any man could say who found that likeness,
Smiling gently on it, "This was Gorgo! "
LXXXVI
Love is so strong a thing,
The very gods must yield,
When it is welded fast
With the unflinching truth.
