Part 2

There is a spring, through whose cool water shows The sand like silver, clear as seen through air. There is a spring, above whose mirror grows A lotus like a grove in flower fair. Here, as I lay in tears, a spirit stood Born of the water, then she called to me, Sappho, pursuing Love, by Grief pursued, Sappho, beside the blue Leucadian sea There stands a rock, and there above the caves, Whose wandering echoes reach Apollo's fane, Down leaping to the blue and breaking waves, Lovers find sleep, nor dream of love again. Deucalion here found ease from Pyrrah's scorn, Sappho arise, and where the sharp cliffs fall, Thy body, that had better not been born, Cast to the waves, the blue, blue waves that call. I rise, and weeping silently, I go. My fear is great, my love is greater still. Better oblivion than the love I know, Kinder than Phaon's is the blue wave's will.

Ye favouring breezes, guard me on this day, Love, lend your pinions, waft me o'er the sea Where, lovely Phœbus, on thy shrine I'll lay My lyre, with this inscription unto thee: "Sappho to Phœbus consecrates her lyre, Unto the God the gift, the fire to fire."

III

Alas! and woe is me. But must I go? O Phaon, Phœbus' self to me is less Than Phaon--will you cast me down below All broken, for the cruel rocks to press

This breast, that loved thee, ruined?--Ah! the song Born of the Muses leaves me and the lyre Is voiceless--they no more to me belong, And in this darkness dies the heavenly fire.

Farewell, ye girls of Lesbos, fare ye well; No more the groves shall answer to my song, No more these hands shall wake the lyre to tell Of Love, of Life--to Phaon they belong, And he has fled. O Loveliness, return, Make once again my soul to sing in joy, Feed once again this heart with fires that burn, Gods! can no prayers avail but to destroy,

No songs bring back the lost, no sighs recall The lost that was my love, my life, my all?

Return! Return! Raise to the wind thy sail, Across the sea bring back to me the years, Eros shall lend to thee the favouring gale, The track is sure where Aphrodite steers. Let thy white sail be lifted on the rim Of sky that marks the dark dividing seas. Failing that far-off sail, remain the dim Blue depths where once Deucalion found release. Failing that far-off sail, the waves shall give Death, or Forgetfulness, whilst still I live.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Sappho, by Sappho and Henry de Vere Stacpoole