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From Sappho
Thou liest dead, lie on: of thee
No sweet remembrances shall be,
Who never plucked Pierian rose,
Who never chanced on Anteros.
Unknown, unnoticed, there below
Through Aides’ houses shalt thou go
Alone, for never a flitting ghost
Shall find in thee a lover lost.
Digby Mackworth Dolben
(1848 – 1867)
From Sappho
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More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Digby Mackworth Dolben, Sappho
Felicia Hemans
The last song of Sappho
Sound on, thou dark unslumbering sea!
My dirge is in thy moan;
My spirit finds response in thee,
To its own ceaseless cry–’Alone, alone !’
Yet send me back one other word,
Ye tones that never cease !
Oh ! let your secret caves be stirr’d,
And say, dark waters! will ye give me peace?
Away! my weary soul hath sought
In vain one echoing sigh,
One answer to consuming thought
In human hearts–and will the wave reply ?
Sound on, thou dark, unslumbering sea!
Sound in thy scorn and pride !
I ask not, alien world, from thee,
What my own kindred earth hath still denied.
And yet I loved that earth so well,
With all its lovely things!
–Was it for this the death-wind fell
On my rich lyre, and quench’d its living strings?
–Let them lie silent at my feet !
Since broken even as they,
The heart whose music made them sweet,
Hath pour’d on desert-sands its wealth away.
Yet glory’s light hath touch’d my name,
The laurel-wreath is mine–
–With a lone heart, a weary frame–
O restless deep ! I come to make them thine !
Give to that crown, that burning crown,
Place in thy darkest hold!
Bury my anguish, my renown,
With hidden wrecks, lost gems, and wasted gold.
Thou sea-bird on the billow’s crest,
Thou hast thy love, thy home;
They wait thee in the quiet nest,
And I, the unsought, unwatch’d-for–I too come!
I, with this winged nature fraught,
These visions wildly free,
This boundless love, this fiery thought–
Alone I come–oh ! give me peace, dark sea!
Felicia Hemans (1793 – 1835)
The last song of Sappho
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive G-H, Archive S-T, CLASSIC POETRY, Sappho
Sappho
(c. 630–570 b.c.)
Sleep, darling
Sleep, darling
I have a small
daughter called
Cleis, who is
like a golden
flower
I wouldn’t
take all Croesus’
kingdom with love
thrown in, for her
—
Don’t ask me what to wear
I have no embroidered
headband from Sardis to
give you, Cleis, such as
I wore
and my mother
always said that in her
day a purple ribbon
looped in the hair was thought
to be high style indeed
but we were dark:
a girl
whose hair is yellower than
torchlight should wear no
headdress but fresh flowers
Sappho
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More in: Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Sappho
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