Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics Part 12

If love be naught, 5 Why do the G.o.ds still love?

If love be all, What should men do but love?

LXXV

Tell me what this life means, O my prince and lover, With the autumn sunlight On thy bronze-gold head?

With thy clear voice sounding 5 Through the silver twilight,-- What is the lost secret Of the tacit earth?

LXXVI

Ye have heard how Marsyas, In the folly of his pride, Boasted of a matchless skill,-- When the great G.o.d's back was turned;

How his fond imagining 5 Fell to ashes cold and grey, When the flawless player came In serenity and light.

So it was with those I loved In the years ere I loved thee. 10 Many a saying sounds like truth, Until Truth itself is heard.

Many a beauty only lives Until Beauty pa.s.ses by, And the mortal is forgot 15 In the shadow of the G.o.d.

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 gra.s.s, 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!

Lx.x.x

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.

Lx.x.xI

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 pa.s.sion was it born, In what lost land over sea?

Lx.x.xII

Over the roofs the honey-coloured moon, With purple shadows on the silver gra.s.s,

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,