PORTEOUS AND GIBBS PRINTERS
PON the white-cliff'd brow of Leucadie Where, deep below, Ionian billows break, She of the violet crown, the Queen of Song, The Lesbian Sappho stood. Athwart her brow The light breeze flutter'd, with his amorous wing Lifting the wealth of rippling hair that burst From thrall of fillet, luminous and dark As the black violet. Her large, languid eyes Gleam'd with a troublous light of joyless love, And her thin hands, press'd hard upon her breast, As if to quell the bursting of her heart. Then suddenly she seized her lyre, and flung Into the trembling air a wail of song.
I would those eyes that shine so bright
Could read my loving heart aright;
And then thy lips would heal the smart
Of wounds thine eyes have dealt my heart.
But ah! thine eyes are turn'd from me,
My love and grief thou wilt not see.
Thou wilt not heed when I complain,
And I must weep and sigh in vain.
I would our hearts were changed: that mine
Might throb in that cold breast of thine,
And all thy being gently move
To make thee feel the power of love.
Then my warm breast, thy heart would fire,
Until it glow'd with sweet desire,
And love in both our hearts should reign;
No more I'd weep and sigh in vain.
In vain, in vain-Oh not more vainly beats
Hot sunlight all day long on this cold rock
That will not melt or warm, than from mine eyes
Rains down the light of love on that cold heart
That will not drink it. Not more vainly creep
Soft murmuring waves around the stony breast
Of this hard cliff that will not yield nor soften,
Than fall my sighs on that dull ear. O Love!
Blind and capricious-shooting all astray-
Thy heedless arrows, causing hearts to be
Unloved where loving-loved where loving not.
Alcæus, master of Æolic verse,
That strikes with golden plectrum, best of all
Wooes me in vain, ashamed to tell his love,*
With lyric strains of passionate melody—
Calls me the violet-tress'd, the spotless Sappho,
The blandly-smiling. But I heed him not,
Even as he heeds me not for whom I waste
My love, as music on dead ears, or scent
Of flowers on desert lands. Ah, me! I'm weary
Of this great passionate grief of hopeless love,
And long to put it from me.
Shake to my pulsing fingers, lyre strings, shake;
Draw forth in song the outbreak of my heart,
Shatter'd and torn in sunder by the storm
Of love tumultuous, even as the forest oak
Is rent and shaken by the stormy winds
That headlong sweep adown the mountain side.
So will I sing to thee, unconquer'd Love.
* “Ἰόπλοκ' ἄγνα μελλιχόμειδε Σάπφοι,
θέλω τι είπην, ἀλλά με κωλύ' αἴδως.
Éros, Éros! Ever resistless Éros!
Gods immortal, dwelling on high Olympus,
Man that's mortal-All that hath life confess thee,
Sovran Almighty.
Éros, Éros! Jove's forked lightning sears not
Fiercer, faster; slays not with stroke more certain.
Phœbus hath not deadlier shaft to smite with
Than are thine arrows.
Éros, Éros! Sweet is the wound thou givest,
Sweet as honey bee-wrought on thymy Hybla,
Bitter gall-like, rankles its fatal poison,
Deep in the heart's core.
Éros, Éros! Swift as the snake that stealeth,
Fraught with venom, into the breast unguarded;
Strikes thy fang, that festering deep and deadly,
Poisons the life-blood.
Éros, Éros! Like as a bird that singing
Soareth heav'nward, till by the fowler's arrow
Smit, she falleth, dying in song on Ocean,
So let mine end be.
Yet ere the end come, let us sing once more,
O Lyre, the solace of my soul, and then
Rest voiceless ever with me 'neath the wave.
Latest and loftiest be my song to thee,
O Nature, mother beauteous, bountiful!
Beloved and loving, who did'st ne'er cast back,
Coldly, thy children's love upon their hearts,
Ev'n as night casts the breathings of warm earth
Back on her bosom, turn'd to weeping dews.
Let me die singing-swans should die in song.
Nature! mother, gentlest, and best, and fondest !
Thou that never spurnest a child's affection,
But with deeper, tenderer love returnest
All its devotion,
Thou that takest unto thy heart maternal
Passionate hearts that come unto thee for soothing,
As the scared child flees to the mother's bosom,
Sobbing its grief there.
Born of Kosmos! Over thy brow in splendour
Flames the Sun, and under thy feet the moon gleams.
Myriad stars are wrought in thy mantle azure,
Draped all around thee.
On thee waits the star of the pearly morning,
Bright-eyed Phosphor, leading in ruddy daylight,
Gentle Hesper bringing us all things goodly,
Calm and reposing.
Fruit and oil and wine to the weary toiler,
Lamb and kid to rest in the fold and homestead,
Bird and beast to nest and to lair in greenwood,
Babe to the bosom.
O sweet mother! how I do love thee ever,
Love thy bright skies arching the empyréan,
Outspread ether luminous in the sunbeams,
Throbbing with glad life.
Mother, mother! back to thy loving bosom
Take my spirit. Let me transfuse my being
Through thy being. Living a voice, disbodied,
Wand'ring for ever.
Me shall Hades hold not in realms Plutonian-
Hold a pale ghost, voiceless and joyless ever.
Song is mighty, bursting the gates of Orcus,
Love and the lyre string.
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