Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics Part 11

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 pa.s.sed 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 than the wise.

And not for all our questioning 10 Shall we discover more than joy, Nor find a better thing than love!

"Let pa.s.s the banners and the spears, The hate, the battle, and the greed; For greater than all gifts is peace, 15 And strength is in the tranquil mind."

LXXI

Ye who have the stable world In the keeping of your hands.

Flocks and men, the lasting hills, And the ever-wheeling stars;

Ye who freight with wondrous things 5 The wide-wandering heart of man And the galleon of the moon, On those silent seas of foam;

Oh, if ever ye shall grant Time and place and room enough 10 To this fond and fragile heart Stifled with the throb of love,

On that day one grave-eyed Fate, Pausing in her toil, shall say, "Lo, one mortal has achieved 15 Immortality of love!"

LXXII

I heard the G.o.ds reply: "Trust not the future with its perilous chance; The fortunate hour is on the dial now.

"To-day be wise and great, And put off hesitation and go forth 5 With cheerful courage for the diurnal need.

"Stout be the heart, nor slow The foot to follow the impetuous will, Nor the hand slack upon the loom of deeds.

"Then may the Fates look up 10 And smile a little in their tolerant way, Being full of infinite regard for men."

LXXIII

The sun on the tide, the peach on the bough, The blue smoke over the hill, And the shadows trailing the valley-side, Make up the autumn day.

Ah, no, not half! Thou art not here 5 Under the bronze beech-leaves, And thy lover's soul like a lonely child Roams through an empty room.

LXXIV

If death be good, Why do the G.o.ds not die?

If life be ill, Why do the G.o.ds still live?