Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics by Bliss Carman (best books to read TXT) 📕

10
Then through the quiet of dusk
  Bright sudden laughter.

From the hushed street, through the portal,
Where soon my lover will enter,
Comes the pure strain of a flute 15
  Tender with passion.

XXII

Once you lay upon my bosom,
While the long blue-silver moonlight
Walked the plain, with that pure passion
  All your own.

Now the moon is gone, the Pleiads 5
Gone, the dead of night is going;
Slips the hour, and on my bed
  I lie alone.

XXIII

I loved thee, Atthis, in the long ago,
When the great oleanders were in flower
In the broad herded meadows full of sun.
And we would often at the fall of dusk
Wander together by the silver stream, 5
When the soft grass-heads were all wet with dew,
And purple-misted in the fading light.
And joy I knew and sorrow at thy voice,
And the superb magnificence of love,—
The loneliness that saddens solitude, 10
And the sweet speech that makes it durable,—
The bitter longing and the keen desire,
The sweet companionship through quiet days
In the slow ample beauty of the world,
And the unutterable glad release 15
Within the temple of the holy night.
O Atthis, how I loved thee long ago
In that fair perished summer by the sea!

XXIV

I shall be ever maiden,
If thou be not my lover,
And no man shall possess me
Henceforth and forever.

But thou alone shalt gather 5
This fragile flower of beauty,—
To crush and keep the fragrance
Like a holy incense.

Thou only shalt remember
This love of mine, or hallow 10
The coming years with gladness,
Calm and pride and passion.

XXV

It was summer when I found you
In the meadow long ago,—
And the golden vetch was growing
  By the shore.

Did we falter when love took us 5
With a gust of great desire?
Does the barley bid the wind wait
  In his course?

XXVI

I recall thy white gown, cinctured
With a linen belt, whereon
Violets were wrought, and scented
With strange perfumes out of Egypt.

And I know thy foot was covered 5
With fair Lydian broidered straps;
And the petals from a rose-tree
Fell within the marble basin.

XXVII

Lover, art thou of a surety
Not a learner of the wood-god?
Has the madness of his music
  Never touched thee?

Ah, thou dear and godlike mortal, 5
If Pan takes thee for his pupil,
Make me but another Syrinx
  For that piping.

XXVIII

With your head thrown backward
In my arm's safe hollow,
And your face all rosy
With the mounting fervour;

While the grave eyes greaten 5
With the wise new wonder,
Swimming in a love-mist
Like the haze of Autumn;

From that throat, the throbbing
Nightingale's for pleading, 10
Wayward, soft, and welling
Inarticulate love-notes,

Come the words that bubble
Up through broken laughter,
Sweeter than spring-water, 15
"Gods, I am so happy!"

XXIX

Ah, what am I but a torrent,
Headstrong, impetuous, broken,
Like the spent clamour of waters
  In the blue canyon?

Ah, what art thou but a fern-frond, 5
Wet with blown spray from the river,
Diffident, lovely, sequestered,
  Frail on the rock-ledge?

Yet, are we not for one brief day,
While the sun sleeps on the mountain, 10
Wild-hearted lover and loved one,
  Safe in Pan's keeping?

XXX

Love shakes my soul, like a mountain wind
  Falling upon the trees,
When they are swayed and whitened and bowed
  As the great gusts will.

I know why Daphne sped through the grove 5
  When the bright god came by,
And shut herself in the laurel's heart
  For her silent doom.

Love fills my heart, like my lover's breath
  Filling the hollow flute, 10
Till the magic wood awakes and cries
  With remembrance and joy.

Ah, timid Syrinx, do I not know
  Thy tremor of sweet fear?
For a beautiful and imperious player 15
  Is the lord of life.

XXXI

Love, let the wind cry
On the dark mountain,
Bending the ash-trees
And the tall hemlocks,
With the great voice of 5
Thunderous legions,
How I adore thee.

Let the hoarse torrent
In the blue canyon,
Murmuring mightily 10
Out of the grey mist
Of primal chaos,
Cease not proclaiming
How I adore thee.

Let the long rhythm 15
Of crunching rollers,
Breaking and bellowing
On the white seaboard,
Titan and tireless,
Tell, while the world stands, 20
How I adore thee.

Love, let the clear call
Of the tree-cricket,
Frailest of creatures,
Green as the young grass, 25
Mark with his trilling
Resonant bell-note,
How I adore thee.

Let the glad lark-song
Over the meadow, 30
That melting lyric
Of molten silver,
Be for a signal
To listening mortals,
How I adore thee. 35

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

XXXII

Heart of mine, if all the altars
Of the ages stood before me,
Not one pure enough nor sacred
Could I find to lay this white, white
  Rose of love upon. 5

I who am not great enough to
Love thee with this mortal body
So impassionate with ardour,
But oh, not too small to worship
  While the sun shall shine,—