Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics

If death be good,
Why do the gods not die?

Surer, serener,
Fuller with passion
And exultation,
Let the hushed whisper 40
In thine own heart say,
How I adore thee.

Love fills my heart, like my lover's breath

And then her mouth, more delicate 5
Than the frail wood-anemone,
Brushes my cheek, and deeper grow
The purple shadows.

Like a red lily in the meadow grasses,
Swayed by the wind and burning in the sunlight

When I have departed,
Say but this behind me,
"Love was all her wisdom,
All her care.
"Well she kept love's secret,— 5
Dared and never faltered,—
Laughed and never doubted
Love would win.
"Let the world's rough triumph
Trample by above her, 10
She is safe forever
From all harm.
"In a land that knows not
Bitterness nor sorrow,
She has found out all 15
Of truth at last."

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?

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.

Souls of lovers yet unborn.

Hark, my lover, it is spring!