Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics by Bliss Carman (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📖

Soul of sorrow, why this weeping?
What immortal grief hath touched thee
With the poignancy of sadness,—
  Testament of tears?

Have the high gods deigned to show thee 5
Destiny, and disillusion
Fills thy heart at all things human,
  Fleeting and desired?

Nay, the gods themselves are fettered
By one law which links together 10
Truth and nobleness and beauty,
  Man and stars and sea.

And they only shall find freedom
Who with courage rise and follow
Where love leads beyond all peril, 15
  Wise beyond all words.

It never can be mine
To sit in the door in the sun
And watch the world go by,
A pageant and a dream;

For I was born for love, 5
And fashioned for desire,
Beauty, passion, and joy,
And sorrow and unrest;

And with all things of earth
Eternally must go, 10
Daring the perilous bourn
Of joyance and of death,

A strain of song by night,
A shadow on the hill,
A hint of odorous grass, 15
A murmur of the sea.

Others shall behold the sun
Through the long uncounted years,—
Not a maid in after time
  Wise as thou!

For the gods have given thee
Their best gift, an equal mind 5
That can only love, be glad,
  And fear not.

Let thy strong spirit never fear,
Nor in thy virgin soul be thou afraid.
The gods themselves and the almightier fates
Cannot avail to harm

With outward and misfortunate chance 5
The radiant unshaken mind of him
Who at his being's centre will abide,
Secure from doubt and fear.

His wise and patient heart shall share
The strong sweet loveliness of all things made, 10
And the serenity of inward joy
Beyond the storm of tears.

Will none say of Sappho,
Speaking of her lovers,
And the love they gave her,—
Joy and days and beauty,
Flute-playing and roses, 5
Song and wine and laughter,—

Will none, musing, murmur,
"Yet, for all the roses,
All the flutes and lovers,
Doubt not she was lonely 10
As the sea, whose cadence
Haunts the world for ever."

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."

There is no more to say now thou art still,
There is no more to do now thou art dead,
There is no more to know now thy clear mind
Is back returned unto the gods who gave it.

Now thou art gone the use of life is past, 5
The meaning and the glory and the pride,
There is no joyous friend to share the day,
And on the threshold no awaited shadow.

Play up, play up thy silver flute;
The crickets all are brave;
Glad is the red autumnal earth
  And the blue sea.

Play up thy flawless silver flute; 5
Dead ripe are fruit and grain.
When love puts on his scarlet coat,
  Put off thy care.

A beautiful child is mine,
Formed like a golden flower,
Cleis the loved one.
And above her I value
Not all the Lydian land, 5
Nor lovely Hellas.

Ah, but now henceforth
Only one meaning
Has life for me.

Only one purport,
Measure and beauty, 5
Has the bright world.

What mean the wood-winds,
Colour and morning,
Bird, stream, and hill?

And the brave city 10
With its enchantment?
Thee, only thee!

Softly the wind moves through the radiant morning,
And the warm sunlight sinks into the valley,
Filling the green earth with a quiet joyance,
  Strength, and fulfilment.

Even so, gentle, strong and wise and happy, 5
Through the soul and substance of my being,
Comes the breath of thy great love to me-ward,
  O thou dear mortal.

What the west wind whispers
At the end of summer,
When the barley harvest
Ripens to the sickle,
  Who can tell? 5

What means the fine music
Of the dry cicada,
Through the long noon hours
Of the autumn stillness,
  Who can say? 10

How the grape ungathered
With its bloom of blueness
Greatens on the trellis
Of the brick-walled garden,
  Who can know? 15

Yet I, too, am greatened,
Keep the note of gladness,
Travel by the wind's road,
Through this autumn leisure,—
  By thy love. 20

Indoors the fire is kindled;
Beechwood is piled on the hearthstone;
Cold are the chattering oak-leaves;
And the ponds frost-bitten.

Softer than rainfall at twilight, 5
Bringing the fields benediction
And the hills quiet and greyness,
Are my long thoughts of thee.

How should thy friend fear the seasons?
They only perish of winter 10
Whom Love, audacious and tender,
Never hath visited.

You ask how love can keep the mortal soul
Strong to the pitch of joy throughout the years.

Ask how your brave cicada on the bough
Keeps the long sweet insistence of his cry;

Ask how the Pleiads steer across the night