Part 2

SAPPHO It is too late; for now the wine of life Is spilt, the shore-lark of first love has flown, And all the Summer waned. Yet, long ago, How lightly I had passed through any pain,— How gladly I had gone to any home, A wanderer with you o’er many seas; And slept beside your little fire content, And fared still on again between green hills And echoing valleys where the eagled pines Were full of gloom, and many waters sang,— Still on to some low plain and highland coign Remembered not of men, where we had made Our home amid the music of the hills, Letting life’s twilight sands glide thro’ the glass So golden-slow, so glad, no plaintive chime Could e’er be blown across autumnal eves From Life’s gray towers of many-tongued Regret: Then I had been most happy at your side, Easing this aching heart with homely thoughts And turning these sad hands to simple things. In the low oven that should gleam by night Baking my wheaten loaves, and with my wheel Spinning the milky wool, and light of heart Dipping my brazen pitcher in the spring That bubbled by our door. And then, perchance (O anodyne for all dark-memoried days!), To feel the touch of little clinging hands And hold your child and mine close on this breast, And croon it songs and tunes quite meaningless Unto the bosom where no milk has been, And fonder than the poolside flutings low Of dreaming frogs to their Arcadian Pan. There had I borne to you a sailor-folk, A tawny-haired swart brood of boys, as brave As mine old Phaon was, cubbed by the sea And buffeted by wind and brume; and I, On winter nights when all the waves were black, In musing-wise had told them tales and dreams Of Lesbian days, e’en though the words should sound To my remembering heart, so far from home, As mournful as the wind to imprisoned men; —Old tales they should re-tell long ages hence Unto their children’s children by the fire When loud the dark South-West that brings the rain Moaned round their eaves. And in more happy days By some pale silver summer moon, when dim The waters were—mysterious eves of dusk, And music, stars, and silence, when the sea Sighs languorously as a god in sleep— Singing into my saddened heart should come White thoughts, to bloom in words as roses break And blow and wither and are gone; and we, Reckless of time, should waken not and find Our hearts grown old, but evermore live on As do the stars and Earth’s untroubled trees, While seasons came, like birds, and went again,— Though Greece and her green islands were no more, And all her marbled glory should go down Like flowers that die and fall, and one by one Like lamps her lofty cities should go out.

PHAON Your voice, like dew, falls deep in my dry heart, And like a bell your name swings through my dreams; Now all my being throbs and cries for you; Come back with me; but come, and I will speak A thousand gentle words for each poor tear That dimmed your eyes! Come back, and I will crown Your days with love so enduring it shall light The eternal stars to bed!

SAPPHO Ask me no more,— My Phaon, you must ask me nevermore: Though Music pipe from Memory’s darkest pine Her tenderest note, all time her wings are torn; The assuaging founts of tears themselves have failed. Life to the lees I drained, and I have grown Too lightly wayward with its wine of love, Too sadly troubled with its wind of change, And some keen madness burns through all my blood. The whimpering velvet whelps of Passion once I warmed in my white breast, and now full-grown And gaunt they stalk me naked through the world; Too fondly now I bend unto the fierce Necessity of bliss, yet in each glow Of golden angour yearn forever toward Some quiet gloom where plead the nightingales Of lustral hope. I am a garden old Where drift dead blossoms now and broken dreams And only ghosts of old pale Sorrows walk.

Earth, April after April, beauteous is, But from this body worn, yet once so fair, My tired eyes gaze, as from a ruined tower Some nesting bird looks out upon the sun. These vagrant feet too many homes have known To claim one door; all my waste heart is now An impregnant thing of weeds and wilful moods, Where even Love’s most lowly groundling ne’er Could creep with wearied plumes, and be at rest: Not now like our sad plains of Sicily, Pensive with happier harvests year by year This bosom is,—but hot as Aetna’s, torn And seared with all the fires of vast despairs,— A menace and a mockery where still brood On its dark heights the eagles of Unrest.

Yet had you only loved me, who can tell How humble I had been, how I had tried From this poor broken twilight to re-build The Dawn, and from Love’s ashes to re-dream The flower.

PHAON I loved you then, and love you now. The torn plumes of the wayward wings I take, The ruined rose, and all the empty cruse; Here I accept the bitter with the sweet, The autumnal sorrow with the autumnal gold; Tears shall go unregretted, and much pain Gladly I take, if grief, in truth, and you Go hand in hand.

SAPPHO Ask me no more! For good Were life, indeed, if every lonely bough Could lure again the migrant nightingale! —If all that luting music of first love Could be recalled down years grown desolate! Lightly they sing who love and are beloved; And men shall lightly listen; but the heart Forlorn of hope, that hides its wound in song, Remembered is through many years and lands. And I have wept and sung, and I have known So many hours of sorrow—all for you!

PHAON What Love remembers little things?—what wave Withholds itself for sighs of broken reeds?

SAPPHO The wave remembers not, till reed by reed The lyric shores of youth lie ruinous; It was not much I asked in those old days;— As waters come whence reeds may never see, So men have wider missions than we know. ’Tis not thro’ all their moods they hunger for Our poor pale faces; as a flame at sea They seek us in the gloom, and then forget. ’Tis when by dusk the battle-sweat has dried; ’Tis when the port is won, and wind and storm Are past; ’tis when the heart for solace aches; ’Tis when the road is lost in darkling woods, Or under alien stars the fire is lit And when strange dreams make deep the idle hour; Then would I have my name sing throbbingly Thro’ some beloved heart, soft as a bird,— And swing with it—swing sweet as silver bells! Not all your hours I hoped to see you turn To my poor face; but when the wayside flower Shone through the dust and won the softer mood, And when the soul aspired for better things, Disturbed by voices calling past the Dawn, I hoped your troubled eyes would seek my eyes. And in those days that I have cried for you And went uncomforted, had you returned, I could have washed your guilty feet with tears, And unto you still grown, and gone thro’ sun And gloom beside you, holding in my arms Hope’s hostage children, while I gladly felt The keen captivity of love re-wake At each light touch, and in the sweet dread bliss Of motherhood and most mysterious birth Forgot old wrongs, and starred the hills of grief With primrose faith and opiate asphodel.

PHAON Why brood on things turned ashes long ago When softly dawn by golden dawn, and eve By opal eve, Earth whispers: Life is good?

SAPPHO Once I had listened to you e’er I go;— For like a god you seemed in those glad days Of droning wings and languorous afternoons, When close beside the murmuring sea we walked. Then did the odorous summer ocean seem A meadow green where foam one moment flowered And then was gone, and ever came again, A thousand blossom-burdened Springs in one! —How like a god you seemed to me; and I Was then most happy, and at little things We lightly laughed, and oftentimes we plunged Waist-deep and careless in the cool green waves, As Tethys once and Oceanus played Upon the golden ramparts of the world: Then would we rest, and muse upon the sands, Heavy with dreams and touched with some sad peace Born of our very weariness of joy, While drooped the wind and all the sea grew still And unremembered trailed the idle oar And no leaf moved and hushed were all the birds And on the dunes the thin green ripples lisped Themselves to sleep and sails swung dreamily, Where azure islands floated on the air. Then did your body seem a temple white And I a worshipper who found therein No god beyond the gracious marble, yet Most meekly kneeled, and learned that I must love. The bloom of youth was on your sunburnt cheek, The streams of life sang thro’ your violet veins, The midnight velvet of your tangled hair Lured, as a twilight rill, my passionate hands; The muscles ran and rippled on your back Like wind on evening waters, and your arm Seemed one to cherish, or as sweetly crush. The odour of your body sinuous And saturate with sun and sea-air was As Lesbian wine to me, and all your voice A pain that took me back to times unknown; And all the ephemeral glory of the flesh,— The mystic sad bewilderment of warmth And life amid the coldness of the world Did seem to me so feeble on the Deep, Poised like a sea-bird on some tumbling crest As you called faintly back across the waves, That one must love it as a little flower— So strange, that one must guard it as a child. Some spirit of the Sea crept in our veins And through long immemorial afternoons We mused and dreamed, and wave by pensive wave Strange moods stole over us, and lo, we loved!

Oh, had you gone while still that glory fell Like sunlight round you—had you sweetly died, I should have loved you now as women love The wonder and the silence of the West When with sad eyes they breathe a last farewell To where the black ships go so proudly out,— Watching with twilit faces by the Sea, Till down some golden rift the fading sails Darken and glow and pale amid the dusk, And gleam again, and pass into the gloom.

PHAON Nay, Violet-Crowned, once in our time we loved, The hand of that love’s ghost shall lead you back. Life, without you—life is an empty nest! A grove with god and altar lost! A lute Whereon no lonely fingers ever stray. When in the moonlight Philomela mourned Sad-throated for poor murdered Itylus, And when the day-birds woke the dewy lawn And white the sunlight fell across my bed And all the dim world turned to gold again,— Oft then, it seemed, the truant would come home, Back as a bird to its forgotten nest, And O the lute should find its song, and life Be glad again!

SAPPHO Your words but live and die Like desert blooms, flow’rs blown and gone again Where no foot ever fell. I shall go Home,— Home, Home afar, where unknown seas forlorn On gloomy towers and darkling bastions foam, And lonely eyes look out for one dim sail That never comes, and men have said there is No sun.—And though I go forth soon no fear Shall cling to me, since I a thousand times Ere this have died, or seemed in truth to die. For sun by sun the grave insatiable Has taken to its gloom some fleeting grace, And day by day some glory old engulfed, And left me as a house untenanted. The unfathomed Ocean of wide Death, at most, And that familiar stream called sleep are one!

PHAON Enough of this! I need you; nay, turn back With me, and let one riotous flame of bliss Forever burn away these withered griefs As fire eats clean autumnal mountain-sides; For all this sweet sad-eyed dissuasiveness Endears like dew the flow’r of final love!

SAPPHO Yes, I have died ere this a thousand times; For on the dusky borderlands of dream Thro’ the dim twilight of dear summer dawns So darkly gold, before the hurrying hooves Of Apollonian pearl throbbed down the wind, Hearing the Lesbian birds amid green boughs Where tree and hill and town were touched with fire, —Hearing, yet hearing not, thro’ all the thin Near multitudinous lament of Dawn’s Low-rustling leaves, stirred by some opal wing,— Oft have I felt my pilgrim soul come home, For all its caging flesh a wanderer That in the night goes out by those stern gates Where five grim warders guard the body well. It was not I, but one long dead that woke, When, half in dreams, I felt this errant soul Once more to its tellurian cage return: An angel exile, looking for its lost,— A draggled glory, brooding for its own! Then faint and strange on my half-hearing ears There fell the flute and pipe of early birds; And strange the odour of the opening flowers; And strange the great world lay; and stranger still The quiet rain along the glimmering grass: And Earth, sad with so many memories Of bliss, and beautiful with vague regrets, Took on a poignant glory, strange as death; And light and water, grass, and dark-leaved trees Were good to look on, and most dear was life!

PHAON What is this dim-eyed madness and dark talk Of Death?

SAPPHO Hush! I have seen Death pass a hand Along old wounds, and they have ached no more; And with one little word lull pain away, And heal long-wasting tears.

PHAON But these soft lips Were made not for the touch of mold.

SAPPHO Time was I thought Death stern, and scattered at his door My dearest roses, that his feet might come And softly go.

PHAON This body white was made Not for the grave,—this flashing wonder of The hand for hungry worms!

SAPPHO Oh, quiet as Soft rain on water shall it seem, and sad Only as life’s most dulcet music is, And dark as but a bride’s first dreaded night Is dark; mild, mild as mirrored stars! But you,— You will forget me, Phaon; there, the sting, The sorrow of the grave is not its green And the salt tear upon its violet; But the long years that bring the gray neglect, When the glad grasses smooth the little mound,— When leaf by leaf the tree of sorrow wanes And on the urn unseen the tarnish comes, And tears are not so bitter as they were. Time sings so low to our bereavèd ears,— So softly breathes, that, bud by falling bud, The garden of fond Grief all empty lies And unregretted dip the languid oars Of Charon thro’ the gloom, and then are gone.

PHAON Red-lipped and breathing woman, made for love, How can this clamouring heart of mine forget?

SAPPHO You will forget, e’en though you would or no, And the long years shall leave you free again; And in some other Spring when other lips Let fall my name, you will remember not.

PHAON Enough,—but let me kiss the heavy rose Of your red mouth.

SAPPHO Not until Death has kissed It white as these white garments, and has robed This body for its groom.

PHAON O woman honey-pale And passion-worn, here to my hungering lips These arms shall hold you close!

SAPPHO You come too late; Forth to a sterner lover must I fare!

PHAON Mine flamed your first love, and shall glow your last!

SAPPHO Then meet this One, and know!

PHAON The hounds of Hell And Aidoneus himself—

SAPPHO Hush!

PHAON You I seek! The sorrow of your voice enraptures me, And though you would elude me, still this arm Is strong, and this great heart as daring as That dusky night in Lesbos long ago!

SAPPHO Stop, son of passion,—hear!

PHAON Not till these arms, O Oriole-throated woman, hold and fold About your beauty as in Lesbos once!

SAPPHO By all the hours you darkened, by the love You crushed and left forsaken, hear me now!

PHAON Thus women change! thus in their time forget!

SAPPHO There lies the sorrow—if we could forget! For one brief hour you gave me all the love That women ask, and then with cruel hands Set free the singing voices from the cage, And shook the glory from the waiting rose; And in life’s empty garden still I clung To this, and called it love, and seemed content! Love! Love! ’Tis we who lose it know it best! Love! Love! It gleams all gold and marble white High on the headlands of our troubled lives Pure as this golden temple of the Sun To twilit eyes; by day a luring star That leads our sea-worn hearts from strait to strait, By night a fire and solace thro’ the cold; Yet standing as this temple stands, a door To worlds mysterious, to alien things, And all the glory of the waiting gods! Love! Love! It is the blue of bluest skies; The farthest green of waters touched with sun! It is the calm of Evening’s earliest star And yet the tumult of most troubled tides! It is the frail original of things, A timorous flame that once half-feared the light, Yet, loosened, sweeps the world, consuming Time And tinsel empires grim with blood and war! It is a hostage lent of Death, that Life Once more in times afar may find its lost! It is the ache and utter loneliness Of wintry lands made wonderful with Spring! Music it is, and song, regret and tears; The rose upon the tomb of fleeting youth; The one red wine of life, that on the lip Of Thirst turns not to ashes! Change and time And sorrow kneel to it, for at its touch The world is paved with gold, and wing by wing Drear autumn fields and valleys dark with rain Re-waken with the birds of Memory!

PHAON All time your words were tuned to madden men; And I am drunk with these sweet pleadings, soft As voices over many waters blown.

SAPPHO Hear me, for by those gods you fear the most There is a fire within me burns away All pity, and some Hate, half-caged, may eat Thro’ all its bars!

PHAON Not till your mouth’s Sad warmth droops unto mine!

SAPPHO Yours once I was, And once, indeed, I watched you tread me down And trample on my whitest flower of youth; And long amid my poor dead roses lay, Stifling with sorrow, and still held my peace, Hoping thro’ all that pain for better things. Down to this day I raised no voice in wrath But bowed my head beneath your heel, and smiled With quiet mouth and most unhappy eyes, And saw my woman’s soul go thin and starved. But now I warn you that the tide has turned; Touch nevermore these hands, for my torn heart Is desperate, and given not to words. Quite humble have I been, and duly spake My lips as you once tutored them to speak. But now this empty husk from which you drained Life’s darkest wine shall die in its own way, And whither now it will this thing you hurt Shall steal away, for all its broken wings. And now, as waters sigh and whisper through Some hollow-throated urn, so peace this day Shall steal thro’ all my veins, as I have said. So back! Stand back,—or if it must be, then Locked desperately arm in arm with me You shall go down, down to this crawling Deep!

(_She approaches him with open arms, but he draws back from her in fear._)

PHAON Madness throbs thro’ her, and I fear this mood.

SAPPHO The waves are softer with their dead, and winds More kindly are with leaves in winter than Men’s cruel love, that kills and buries not! Naked and torn we lie beneath their feet, Who, had they known, in sorrow would have crept Thro’ griefs entombing night with what once held Such joys and tears for them!

(_As she turns to the sea a voice in the distance is heard singing through the twilight_:)

O that sound, not wind or sea, From no bird nor dreamland blown, Bearing you away from me, Crying: “One must go alone!” O that Voice, so like my own Calling through the gloom for thee!— For the love that life has known, For the parting yet to be!

SAPPHO Now I shall go Quite gladly, with this more than anguish at My over-aching heart, that cries for rest: Yes, shade-like even now I seem,—this face Sea-worn as Leucothea’s lonely face, So wistful white at eve amid the waves Where with sad eyes, men say, she gazes on Earth’s failing hills and fields!

(_She turns once more to the sea._)

’Tis good to sleep, And alone, sad mother Ocean, let me lie; Alone, gray mother, take me in your arms Whose earthly sorrow once was deep as yours, Whose passion was as vain, whose heart could sound Thro’ all the sweetest meadows of this world Only for evermore the morning lutes Of loneliness and most unhappy love. For once, in times I know not of, you too Have loved and sorrowed, as your heart would say, Mourning at dusk among your golden Isles. I cannot call on mine old gods, for they Have lived so far from Earth, they scarce would know The odour of my incense, nor how white My piteous altars stand; for as the Moon Smiles sadly disempassioned over men And their tumultuous cities crowned with song, Where live by night so many heavy hearts, So smile the gods on my pale-lipped despairs. On to the end these feet must walk alone,— Alone, once more, and unillumined, fare; For I am far from home to die, and far From any voice to comfort me beyond The cypress twilight and the hemlock gloom! Not evermore, O blue Ionian Sea, And vine-clad valleys, shall these eyes behold My Lesbos, still my first and last of loves! But take me, mother Ocean, while I feel Burn thro’ my blood this magic ecstasy! Take me, O take me in your cooling arms, And let the ablution of soft waters lave Old sorrows from these eyes, and wash the pain From this poor heart, that sinned, but suffered more!

(_With arms upraised she walks through the gathering dusk to the edge of the cliff, and leaps into the sea beneath her._)

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Hyphenation and archaic spellings have been retained as in the original. Punctuation errors have been corrected without note.