Before our lives divide for ever,While time is with us and hands are free,(Time, swift to fasten and swift to severHand from hand, as we stand by the sea)I will say no word that a man might sayWhose whole life's love goes down in a day;For this could never have been; and never,Though the gods and the years relent, shall be.Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour,To think of things that are well outworn?Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower,The dream foregone and the deed forborne?Though joy be done with and grief be vain,Time shall not sever us wholly in twain;Earth is not spoilt for a single shower;But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn.It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain.The singing seasons divide and depart,Winter and summer depart in twain.It will grow not again, it is ruined at root,The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit;Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart,With sullen savour of poisonous pain.I have given no man of my fruit to eat;I trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine.Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet,This wild new growth of the corn and vine,This wine and bread without lees or leaven,We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven,Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet,One splendid spirit, your soul and mine.In the change of years, in the coil of things,In the clamour and rumour of life to be,We, drinking love at the furthest springs,Covered with love as a covering tree,We had grown as gods, as the gods above,Filled from the heart to the lips with love,Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings,O love, my love, had you loved but me!We had stood as the sure stars stand, and movedAs the moon moves, loving the world; and seenGrief collapse as a thing disproved,Death consume as a thing unclean.Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fastSoul to soul while the years fell past;Had you loved me once, as you have not loved;Had the chance been with us that has not been.I have put my days and dreams out of mind,Days that are over, dreams that are done.Though we seek life through, we shall surely findThere is none of them clear to us now, not one.But clear are these things; the grass and the sand,Where, sure as the eyes reach, ever at hand,With lips wide open and face burnt blind,The strong sea-daisies feast on the sun.The low downs lean to the sea; the stream,One loose thin pulseless tremulous vein,Rapid and vivid and dumb as a dream,Works downward, sick of the sun and the rain;No wind is rough with the rank rare flowers;The sweet sea, mother of loves and hours,Shudders and shines as the grey winds gleam,Turning her smile to a fugitive pain.Mother of loves that are swift to fade,Mother of mutable winds and hours.A barren mother, a mother-maid,Cold and clean as her faint salt flowers.I would we twain were even as she,Lost in the night and the light of the sea,Where faint sounds falter and wan beams wade,Break, and are broken, and shed into showers.The loves and hours of the life of a man,They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.Hours that rejoice and regret for a span,Born with a man's breath, mortal as he;Loves that are lost ere they come to birth,Weeds of the wave, without fruit upon earth.I lose what I long for, save what I can,My love, my love, and no love for me!It is not much that a man can saveOn the sands of life, in the straits of time,Who swims in sight of the great third waveThat never a swimmer shall cross or climb.Some waif washed up with the strays and sparsThat ebb-tide shows to the shore and the stars;Weed from the water, grass from a grave,A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme.There will no man do for your sake, I think,What I would have done for the least word said.I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink,Broken it up for your daily bread:Body for body and blood for blood,As the flow of the full sea risen to floodThat yearns and trembles before it sink,I had given, and lain down for you, glad and dead.Yea, hope at highest and all her fruit,And time at fullest and all his dower,I had given you surely, and life to boot,Were we once made one for a single hour.But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart,Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart;And deep in one is the bitter root,And sweet for one is the lifelong flower.To have died if you cared I should die for you, clungTo my life if you bade me, played my partAs it pleased you—these were the thoughts that stung,The dreams that smote with a keener dartThan shafts of love or arrows of death;These were but as fire is, dust, or breath,Or poisonous foam on the tender tongueOf the little snakes that eat my heart.I wish we were dead together to-day,Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight,Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay,Out of the world's way, out of the light,Out of the ages of worldly weather,Forgotten of all men altogether,As the world's first dead, taken wholly away,Made one with death, filled full of the night.How we should slumber, how we should sleep,Far in the dark with the dreams and the dews!And dreaming, grow to each other, and weep,Laugh low, live softly, murmur and muse;Yea, and it may be, struck through by the dream,Feel the dust quicken and quiver, and seemAlive as of old to the lips, and leapSpirit to spirit as lovers use.Sick dreams and sad of a dull delight;For what shall it profit when men are deadTo have dreamed, to have loved with the whole soul's might,To have looked for day when the day was fled?Let come what will, there is one thing worth,To have had fair love in the life upon earth:To have held love safe till the day grew night,While skies had colour and lips were red.Would I lose you now? would I take you then,If I lose you now that my heart has need?And come what may after death to men,What thing worth this will the dead years breed?Lose life, lose all; but at least I know,O sweet life's love, having loved you so,Had I reached you on earth, I should lose not again,In death nor life, nor in dream or deed.Yea, I know this well: were you once sealed mine,Mine in the blood's beat, mine in the breath,Mixed into me as honey in wine,Not time, that sayeth and gainsayeth,Nor all strong things had severed us then;Not wrath of gods, nor wisdom of men,Nor all things earthly, nor all divine,Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death.I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew,You had grown strong as the sun or the sea.But none shall triumph a whole life through:For death is one, and the fates are three.At the door of life, by the gate of breath,There are worse things waiting for men than death;Death could not sever my soul and you,As these have severed your soul from me.You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you,Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer.But will it not one day in heaven repent you?Will they solace you wholly, the days that were?Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss,Meet mine, and see where the great love is,And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you;The gate is strait; I shall not be there.But you, had you chosen, had you stretched hand,Had you seen good such a thing were done,I too might have stood with the souls that standIn the sun's sight, clothed with the light of the sun;But who now on earth need care how I live?Have the high gods anything left to give,Save dust and laurels and gold and sand?Which gifts are goodly; but I will none.O all fair lovers about the world,There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me.My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirledRound and round in a gulf of the sea;And still, through the sound and the straining stream,Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream,The bright fine lips so cruelly curled,And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free.Free, without pity, withheld from woe,Ignorant; fair as the eyes are fair.Would I have you change now, change at a blow,Startled and stricken, awake and aware?Yea, if I could, would I have you seeMy very love of you filling me,And know my soul to the quick, as I knowThe likeness and look of your throat and hair?I shall not change you. Nay, though I might,Would I change my sweet one love with a word?I had rather your hair should change in a night,Clear now as the plume of a black bright bird;Your face fail suddenly, cease, turn grey,Die as a leaf that dies in a day.I will keep my soul in a place out of sight,Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.Far off it walks, in a bleak blown space,Full of the sound of the sorrow of years.I have woven a veil for the weeping face,Whose lips have drunken the wine of tears;I have found a way for the failing feet,A place for slumber and sorrow to meet;There is no rumour about the place,Nor light, nor any that sees or hears.I have hidden my soul out of sight, and said"Let none take pity upon thee, noneComfort thy crying: for lo, thou art dead,Lie still now, safe out of sight of the sun.Have I not built thee a grave, and wroughtThy grave-clothes on thee of grievous thought,With soft spun verses and tears unshed,And sweet light visions of things undone?"I have given thee garments and balm and myrrh,And gold, and beautiful burial things.But thou, be at peace now, make no stir;Is not thy grave as a royal king's?Fret not thyself though the end were sore;Sleep, be patient, vex me no more.Sleep; what hast thou to do with her?The eyes that weep, with the mouth that sings?"Where the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten,The cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by,The misconceived and the misbegotten,I would find a sin to do ere I die,Sure to dissolve and destroy me all through,That would set you higher in heaven, serve youAnd leave you happy, when clean forgotten,As a dead man out of mind, am I.Your lithe hands draw me, your face burns through me,I am swift to follow you, keen to see;But love lacks might to redeem or undo me;As I have been, I know I shall surely be;"What should such fellows as I do?" Nay,My part were worse if I chose to play;For the worst is this after all; if they knew me,Not a soul upon earth would pity me.And I play not for pity of these; but you,If you saw with your soul what man am I,You would praise me at least that my soul all throughClove to you, loathing the lives that lie;The souls and lips that are bought and sold,The smiles of silver and kisses of gold,The lapdog loves that whine as they chew,The little lovers that curse and cry.There are fairer women, I hear; that may be;But I, that I love you and find you fair,Who are more than fair in my eyes if they be,Do the high gods know or the great gods care?Though the swords in my heart for one were seven,Would the iron hollow of doubtful heaven,That knows not itself whether night-time or day be,Reverberate words and a foolish prayer?I will go back to the great sweet mother,Mother and lover of men, the sea.I will go down to her, I and none other,Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me;Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast:O fair white mother, in days long pastBorn without sister, born without brother,Set free my soul as thy soul is free.O fair green-girdled mother of mine,Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,Thy large embraces are keen like pain.Save me and hide me with all thy waves,Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,Those pure cold populous graves of thineWrought without hand in a world without stain.I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,Change as the winds change, veer in the tide;My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,Filled full with life to the eyes and hair,As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tipsWith splendid summer and perfume and pride.This woven raiment of nights and days,Were it once cast off and unwound from me,Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,Alive and aware of thy ways and thee;Clear of the whole world, hidden at home,Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam,A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.Fair mother, fed with the lives of men,Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say.Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again;Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they.But death is the worst that comes of thee;Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea,But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when,Having given us love, hast thou taken away?O tender-hearted, O perfect lover,Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart.The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover,Shall they not vanish away and apart?But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth;Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth;Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover;From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.And grief shall endure not for ever, I know.As things that are not shall these things be;We shall live through seasons of sun and of snow,And none be grievous as this to me.We shall hear, as one in a trance that hears,The sound of time, the rhyme of the years;Wrecked hope and passionate pain will growAs tender things of a spring-tide sea.Sea-fruit that swings in the waves that hiss,Drowned gold and purple and royal rings.And all time past, was it all for this?Times unforgotten, and treasures of things?Swift years of liking and sweet long laughter,That wist not well of the years thereafterTill love woke, smitten at heart by a kiss,With lips that trembled and trailing wings?There lived a singer in France of oldBy the tideless dolorous midland sea.In a land of sand and ruin and goldThere shone one woman, and none but she.And finding life for her love's sake fail,Being fain to see her, he bade set sail,Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold,And praised God, seeing; and so died he.Died, praising God for his gift and grace:For she bowed down to him weeping, and said"Live;" and her tears were shed on his faceOr ever the life in his face was shed.The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stungOnce, and her close lips touched him and clungOnce, and grew one with his lips for a space;And so drew back, and the man was dead.O brother, the gods were good to you.Sleep, and be glad while the world endures.Be well content as the years wear through;Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures;Give thanks for life, O brother, and death,For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath,For gifts she gave you, gracious and few,Tears and kisses, that lady of yours.Rest, and be glad of the gods; but I,How shall I praise them, or how take rest?There is not room under all the skyFor me that know not of worst or best,Dream or desire of the days before,Sweet things or bitterness, any more.Love will not come to me now though I die,As love came close to you, breast to breast.I shall never be friends again with roses;I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strongRelents and recoils, and climbs and closes,As a wave of the sea turned back by song.There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire,Face to face with its own desire;A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.The pulse of war and passion of wonder,The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,The music burning at heart like wine,An armed archangel whose hands raise upAll senses mixed in the spirit's cupTill flesh and spirit are molten in sunder—These things are over, and no more mine.These were a part of the playing I heardOnce, ere my love and my heart were at strife;Love that sings and hath wings as a bird,Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleepThan overwatching of eyes that weep,Now time has done with his one sweet word,The wine and leaven of lovely life.I shall go my ways, tread out my measure,Fill the days of my daily breathWith fugitive things not good to treasure,Do as the world doth, say as it saith;But if we had loved each other—O sweet,Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet,The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasureTo feel you tread it to dust and death—Ah, had I not taken my life up and givenAll that life gives and the years let go,The wine and honey, the balm and leaven,The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?Come life, come death, not a word be said;Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?
Before our lives divide for ever,While time is with us and hands are free,(Time, swift to fasten and swift to severHand from hand, as we stand by the sea)I will say no word that a man might sayWhose whole life's love goes down in a day;For this could never have been; and never,Though the gods and the years relent, shall be.
Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour,To think of things that are well outworn?Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower,The dream foregone and the deed forborne?Though joy be done with and grief be vain,Time shall not sever us wholly in twain;Earth is not spoilt for a single shower;But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn.
It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain.The singing seasons divide and depart,Winter and summer depart in twain.It will grow not again, it is ruined at root,The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit;Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart,With sullen savour of poisonous pain.
I have given no man of my fruit to eat;I trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine.Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet,This wild new growth of the corn and vine,This wine and bread without lees or leaven,We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven,Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet,One splendid spirit, your soul and mine.
In the change of years, in the coil of things,In the clamour and rumour of life to be,We, drinking love at the furthest springs,Covered with love as a covering tree,We had grown as gods, as the gods above,Filled from the heart to the lips with love,Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings,O love, my love, had you loved but me!
We had stood as the sure stars stand, and movedAs the moon moves, loving the world; and seenGrief collapse as a thing disproved,Death consume as a thing unclean.Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fastSoul to soul while the years fell past;Had you loved me once, as you have not loved;Had the chance been with us that has not been.
I have put my days and dreams out of mind,Days that are over, dreams that are done.Though we seek life through, we shall surely findThere is none of them clear to us now, not one.But clear are these things; the grass and the sand,Where, sure as the eyes reach, ever at hand,With lips wide open and face burnt blind,The strong sea-daisies feast on the sun.
The low downs lean to the sea; the stream,One loose thin pulseless tremulous vein,Rapid and vivid and dumb as a dream,Works downward, sick of the sun and the rain;No wind is rough with the rank rare flowers;The sweet sea, mother of loves and hours,Shudders and shines as the grey winds gleam,Turning her smile to a fugitive pain.
Mother of loves that are swift to fade,Mother of mutable winds and hours.A barren mother, a mother-maid,Cold and clean as her faint salt flowers.I would we twain were even as she,Lost in the night and the light of the sea,Where faint sounds falter and wan beams wade,Break, and are broken, and shed into showers.
The loves and hours of the life of a man,They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.Hours that rejoice and regret for a span,Born with a man's breath, mortal as he;Loves that are lost ere they come to birth,Weeds of the wave, without fruit upon earth.I lose what I long for, save what I can,My love, my love, and no love for me!
It is not much that a man can saveOn the sands of life, in the straits of time,Who swims in sight of the great third waveThat never a swimmer shall cross or climb.Some waif washed up with the strays and sparsThat ebb-tide shows to the shore and the stars;Weed from the water, grass from a grave,A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme.
There will no man do for your sake, I think,What I would have done for the least word said.I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink,Broken it up for your daily bread:Body for body and blood for blood,As the flow of the full sea risen to floodThat yearns and trembles before it sink,I had given, and lain down for you, glad and dead.
Yea, hope at highest and all her fruit,And time at fullest and all his dower,I had given you surely, and life to boot,Were we once made one for a single hour.But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart,Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart;And deep in one is the bitter root,And sweet for one is the lifelong flower.
To have died if you cared I should die for you, clungTo my life if you bade me, played my partAs it pleased you—these were the thoughts that stung,The dreams that smote with a keener dartThan shafts of love or arrows of death;These were but as fire is, dust, or breath,Or poisonous foam on the tender tongueOf the little snakes that eat my heart.
I wish we were dead together to-day,Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight,Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay,Out of the world's way, out of the light,Out of the ages of worldly weather,Forgotten of all men altogether,As the world's first dead, taken wholly away,Made one with death, filled full of the night.
How we should slumber, how we should sleep,Far in the dark with the dreams and the dews!And dreaming, grow to each other, and weep,Laugh low, live softly, murmur and muse;Yea, and it may be, struck through by the dream,Feel the dust quicken and quiver, and seemAlive as of old to the lips, and leapSpirit to spirit as lovers use.
Sick dreams and sad of a dull delight;For what shall it profit when men are deadTo have dreamed, to have loved with the whole soul's might,To have looked for day when the day was fled?Let come what will, there is one thing worth,To have had fair love in the life upon earth:To have held love safe till the day grew night,While skies had colour and lips were red.
Would I lose you now? would I take you then,If I lose you now that my heart has need?And come what may after death to men,What thing worth this will the dead years breed?Lose life, lose all; but at least I know,O sweet life's love, having loved you so,Had I reached you on earth, I should lose not again,In death nor life, nor in dream or deed.
Yea, I know this well: were you once sealed mine,Mine in the blood's beat, mine in the breath,Mixed into me as honey in wine,Not time, that sayeth and gainsayeth,Nor all strong things had severed us then;Not wrath of gods, nor wisdom of men,Nor all things earthly, nor all divine,Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death.
I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew,You had grown strong as the sun or the sea.But none shall triumph a whole life through:For death is one, and the fates are three.At the door of life, by the gate of breath,There are worse things waiting for men than death;Death could not sever my soul and you,As these have severed your soul from me.
You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you,Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer.But will it not one day in heaven repent you?Will they solace you wholly, the days that were?Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss,Meet mine, and see where the great love is,And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you;The gate is strait; I shall not be there.
But you, had you chosen, had you stretched hand,Had you seen good such a thing were done,I too might have stood with the souls that standIn the sun's sight, clothed with the light of the sun;But who now on earth need care how I live?Have the high gods anything left to give,Save dust and laurels and gold and sand?Which gifts are goodly; but I will none.
O all fair lovers about the world,There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me.My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirledRound and round in a gulf of the sea;And still, through the sound and the straining stream,Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream,The bright fine lips so cruelly curled,And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free.
Free, without pity, withheld from woe,Ignorant; fair as the eyes are fair.Would I have you change now, change at a blow,Startled and stricken, awake and aware?Yea, if I could, would I have you seeMy very love of you filling me,And know my soul to the quick, as I knowThe likeness and look of your throat and hair?
I shall not change you. Nay, though I might,Would I change my sweet one love with a word?I had rather your hair should change in a night,Clear now as the plume of a black bright bird;Your face fail suddenly, cease, turn grey,Die as a leaf that dies in a day.I will keep my soul in a place out of sight,Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.
Far off it walks, in a bleak blown space,Full of the sound of the sorrow of years.I have woven a veil for the weeping face,Whose lips have drunken the wine of tears;I have found a way for the failing feet,A place for slumber and sorrow to meet;There is no rumour about the place,Nor light, nor any that sees or hears.
I have hidden my soul out of sight, and said"Let none take pity upon thee, noneComfort thy crying: for lo, thou art dead,Lie still now, safe out of sight of the sun.Have I not built thee a grave, and wroughtThy grave-clothes on thee of grievous thought,With soft spun verses and tears unshed,And sweet light visions of things undone?
"I have given thee garments and balm and myrrh,And gold, and beautiful burial things.But thou, be at peace now, make no stir;Is not thy grave as a royal king's?Fret not thyself though the end were sore;Sleep, be patient, vex me no more.Sleep; what hast thou to do with her?The eyes that weep, with the mouth that sings?"
Where the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten,The cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by,The misconceived and the misbegotten,I would find a sin to do ere I die,Sure to dissolve and destroy me all through,That would set you higher in heaven, serve youAnd leave you happy, when clean forgotten,As a dead man out of mind, am I.
Your lithe hands draw me, your face burns through me,I am swift to follow you, keen to see;But love lacks might to redeem or undo me;As I have been, I know I shall surely be;"What should such fellows as I do?" Nay,My part were worse if I chose to play;For the worst is this after all; if they knew me,Not a soul upon earth would pity me.
And I play not for pity of these; but you,If you saw with your soul what man am I,You would praise me at least that my soul all throughClove to you, loathing the lives that lie;The souls and lips that are bought and sold,The smiles of silver and kisses of gold,The lapdog loves that whine as they chew,The little lovers that curse and cry.
There are fairer women, I hear; that may be;But I, that I love you and find you fair,Who are more than fair in my eyes if they be,Do the high gods know or the great gods care?Though the swords in my heart for one were seven,Would the iron hollow of doubtful heaven,That knows not itself whether night-time or day be,Reverberate words and a foolish prayer?
I will go back to the great sweet mother,Mother and lover of men, the sea.I will go down to her, I and none other,Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me;Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast:O fair white mother, in days long pastBorn without sister, born without brother,Set free my soul as thy soul is free.
O fair green-girdled mother of mine,Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,Thy large embraces are keen like pain.Save me and hide me with all thy waves,Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,Those pure cold populous graves of thineWrought without hand in a world without stain.
I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,Change as the winds change, veer in the tide;My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,Filled full with life to the eyes and hair,As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tipsWith splendid summer and perfume and pride.
This woven raiment of nights and days,Were it once cast off and unwound from me,Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,Alive and aware of thy ways and thee;Clear of the whole world, hidden at home,Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam,A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.
Fair mother, fed with the lives of men,Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say.Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again;Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they.But death is the worst that comes of thee;Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea,But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when,Having given us love, hast thou taken away?
O tender-hearted, O perfect lover,Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart.The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover,Shall they not vanish away and apart?But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth;Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth;Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover;From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.
And grief shall endure not for ever, I know.As things that are not shall these things be;We shall live through seasons of sun and of snow,And none be grievous as this to me.We shall hear, as one in a trance that hears,The sound of time, the rhyme of the years;Wrecked hope and passionate pain will growAs tender things of a spring-tide sea.
Sea-fruit that swings in the waves that hiss,Drowned gold and purple and royal rings.And all time past, was it all for this?Times unforgotten, and treasures of things?Swift years of liking and sweet long laughter,That wist not well of the years thereafterTill love woke, smitten at heart by a kiss,With lips that trembled and trailing wings?
There lived a singer in France of oldBy the tideless dolorous midland sea.In a land of sand and ruin and goldThere shone one woman, and none but she.And finding life for her love's sake fail,Being fain to see her, he bade set sail,Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold,And praised God, seeing; and so died he.
Died, praising God for his gift and grace:For she bowed down to him weeping, and said"Live;" and her tears were shed on his faceOr ever the life in his face was shed.The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stungOnce, and her close lips touched him and clungOnce, and grew one with his lips for a space;And so drew back, and the man was dead.
O brother, the gods were good to you.Sleep, and be glad while the world endures.Be well content as the years wear through;Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures;Give thanks for life, O brother, and death,For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath,For gifts she gave you, gracious and few,Tears and kisses, that lady of yours.
Rest, and be glad of the gods; but I,How shall I praise them, or how take rest?There is not room under all the skyFor me that know not of worst or best,Dream or desire of the days before,Sweet things or bitterness, any more.Love will not come to me now though I die,As love came close to you, breast to breast.
I shall never be friends again with roses;I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strongRelents and recoils, and climbs and closes,As a wave of the sea turned back by song.There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire,Face to face with its own desire;A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.
The pulse of war and passion of wonder,The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,The music burning at heart like wine,An armed archangel whose hands raise upAll senses mixed in the spirit's cupTill flesh and spirit are molten in sunder—These things are over, and no more mine.
These were a part of the playing I heardOnce, ere my love and my heart were at strife;Love that sings and hath wings as a bird,Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleepThan overwatching of eyes that weep,Now time has done with his one sweet word,The wine and leaven of lovely life.
I shall go my ways, tread out my measure,Fill the days of my daily breathWith fugitive things not good to treasure,Do as the world doth, say as it saith;But if we had loved each other—O sweet,Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet,The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasureTo feel you tread it to dust and death—
Ah, had I not taken my life up and givenAll that life gives and the years let go,The wine and honey, the balm and leaven,The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?Come life, come death, not a word be said;Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?
Whatever a man of the sons of menShall say to his heart of the lords above,They have shown man verily, once and again,Marvellous mercies and infinite love.In the wild fifth year of the change of things,When France was glorious and blood-red, fairWith dust of battle and deaths of kings,A queen of men, with helmeted hair,Carrier came down to the Loire and slew,Till all the ways and the waves waxed red:Bound and drowned, slaying two by two,Maidens and young men, naked and wed.They brought on a day to his judgment-placeOne rough with labour and red with fight,And a lady noble by name and face,Faultless, a maiden, wonderful, white.She knew not, being for shame's sake blind,If his eyes were hot on her face hard by.And the judge bade strip and ship them, and bindBosom to bosom, to drown and die.The white girl winced and whitened; but heCaught fire, waxed bright as a great bright flameSeen with thunder far out on the sea,Laughed hard as the glad blood went and came.Twice his lips quailed with delight, then said,"I have but a word to you all, one word;Bear with me; surely I am but dead;"And all they laughed and mocked him and heard."Judge, when they open the judgment-roll,I will stand upright before God and pray:'Lord God, have mercy on one man's soul,For his mercy was great upon earth, I say."'Lord, if I loved thee—Lord, if I served—If these who darkened thy fair Son's faceI fought with, sparing not one, nor swervedA hand's-breadth, Lord, in the perilous place—"'I pray thee say to this man, O Lord,Sit thou for him at my feet on a throne.I will face thy wrath, though it bite as a sword,And my soul shall burn for his soul, and atone."'For, Lord, thou knowest, O God most wise,How gracious on earth were his deeds towards me.Shall this be a small thing in thine eyes,That is greater in mine than the whole great sea?'"I have loved this woman my whole life long,And even for love's sake when have I said'I love you'? when have I done you wrong,Living? but now I shall have you dead."Yea, now, do I bid you love me, love?Love me or loathe, we are one not twain.But God be praised in his heaven aboveFor this my pleasure and that my pain!"For never a man, being mean like me,Shall die like me till the whole world dies.I shall drown with her, laughing for love; and sheMix with me, touching me, lips and eyes."Shall she not know me and see me all through,Me, on whose heart as a worm she trod?You have given me, God requite it you,What man yet never was given of God."O sweet one love, O my life's delight,Dear, though the days have divided us,Lost beyond hope, taken far out of sight,Not twice in the world shall the gods do thus.Had it been so hard for my love? but I,Though the gods gave all that a god can give,I had chosen rather the gift to die,Cease, and be glad above all that live.For the Loire would have driven us down to the sea,And the sea would have pitched us from shoal to shoal;And I should have held you, and you held me,As flesh holds flesh, and the soul the soul.Could I change you, help you to love me, sweet,Could I give you the love that would sweeten death,We should yield, go down, locked hands and feet,Die, drown together, and breath catch breath;But you would have felt my soul in a kiss,And known that once if I loved you well;And I would have given my soul for thisTo burn for ever in burning hell.
Whatever a man of the sons of menShall say to his heart of the lords above,They have shown man verily, once and again,Marvellous mercies and infinite love.
In the wild fifth year of the change of things,When France was glorious and blood-red, fairWith dust of battle and deaths of kings,A queen of men, with helmeted hair,
Carrier came down to the Loire and slew,Till all the ways and the waves waxed red:Bound and drowned, slaying two by two,Maidens and young men, naked and wed.
They brought on a day to his judgment-placeOne rough with labour and red with fight,And a lady noble by name and face,Faultless, a maiden, wonderful, white.
She knew not, being for shame's sake blind,If his eyes were hot on her face hard by.And the judge bade strip and ship them, and bindBosom to bosom, to drown and die.
The white girl winced and whitened; but heCaught fire, waxed bright as a great bright flameSeen with thunder far out on the sea,Laughed hard as the glad blood went and came.
Twice his lips quailed with delight, then said,"I have but a word to you all, one word;Bear with me; surely I am but dead;"And all they laughed and mocked him and heard.
"Judge, when they open the judgment-roll,I will stand upright before God and pray:'Lord God, have mercy on one man's soul,For his mercy was great upon earth, I say.
"'Lord, if I loved thee—Lord, if I served—If these who darkened thy fair Son's faceI fought with, sparing not one, nor swervedA hand's-breadth, Lord, in the perilous place—
"'I pray thee say to this man, O Lord,Sit thou for him at my feet on a throne.I will face thy wrath, though it bite as a sword,And my soul shall burn for his soul, and atone.
"'For, Lord, thou knowest, O God most wise,How gracious on earth were his deeds towards me.Shall this be a small thing in thine eyes,That is greater in mine than the whole great sea?'
"I have loved this woman my whole life long,And even for love's sake when have I said'I love you'? when have I done you wrong,Living? but now I shall have you dead.
"Yea, now, do I bid you love me, love?Love me or loathe, we are one not twain.But God be praised in his heaven aboveFor this my pleasure and that my pain!
"For never a man, being mean like me,Shall die like me till the whole world dies.I shall drown with her, laughing for love; and sheMix with me, touching me, lips and eyes.
"Shall she not know me and see me all through,Me, on whose heart as a worm she trod?You have given me, God requite it you,What man yet never was given of God."
O sweet one love, O my life's delight,Dear, though the days have divided us,Lost beyond hope, taken far out of sight,Not twice in the world shall the gods do thus.
Had it been so hard for my love? but I,Though the gods gave all that a god can give,I had chosen rather the gift to die,Cease, and be glad above all that live.
For the Loire would have driven us down to the sea,And the sea would have pitched us from shoal to shoal;And I should have held you, and you held me,As flesh holds flesh, and the soul the soul.
Could I change you, help you to love me, sweet,Could I give you the love that would sweeten death,We should yield, go down, locked hands and feet,Die, drown together, and breath catch breath;
But you would have felt my soul in a kiss,And known that once if I loved you well;And I would have given my soul for thisTo burn for ever in burning hell.
Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.Let us go hence together without fear;Keep silence now, for singing-time is over,And over all old things and all things dear.She loves not you nor me as all we love her.Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,She would not hear.Let us rise up and part; she will not know.Let us go seaward as the great winds go,Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here?There is no help, for all these things are so,And all the world is bitter as a tear.And how these things are, though ye strove to show,She would not know.Let us go home and hence; she will not weep.We gave love many dreams and days to keep,Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow,Saying 'If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle and reap.'All is reaped now; no grass is left to mow;And we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep,She would not weep.Let us go hence and rest; she will not love.She shall not hear us if we sing hereof,Nor see love's ways, how sore they are and steep.Come hence, let be, lie still; it is enough.Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep;And though she saw all heaven in flower above,She would not love.Let us give up, go down; she will not care.Though all the stars made gold of all the air,And the sea moving saw before it moveOne moon-flower making all the foam-flowers fair;Though all those waves went over us, and droveDeep down the stifling lips and drowning hair,She would not care.Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see.Sing all once more together; surely she,She too, remembering days and words that were,Will turn a little toward us, sighing; but we,We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there.Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me,She would not see.
Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.Let us go hence together without fear;Keep silence now, for singing-time is over,And over all old things and all things dear.She loves not you nor me as all we love her.Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,She would not hear.
Let us rise up and part; she will not know.Let us go seaward as the great winds go,Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here?There is no help, for all these things are so,And all the world is bitter as a tear.And how these things are, though ye strove to show,She would not know.
Let us go home and hence; she will not weep.We gave love many dreams and days to keep,Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow,Saying 'If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle and reap.'All is reaped now; no grass is left to mow;And we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep,She would not weep.
Let us go hence and rest; she will not love.She shall not hear us if we sing hereof,Nor see love's ways, how sore they are and steep.Come hence, let be, lie still; it is enough.Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep;And though she saw all heaven in flower above,She would not love.
Let us give up, go down; she will not care.Though all the stars made gold of all the air,And the sea moving saw before it moveOne moon-flower making all the foam-flowers fair;Though all those waves went over us, and droveDeep down the stifling lips and drowning hair,She would not care.
Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see.Sing all once more together; surely she,She too, remembering days and words that were,Will turn a little toward us, sighing; but we,We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there.Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me,She would not see.
Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,How can thine heart be full of the spring?A thousand summers are over and dead.What hast thou found in the spring to follow?What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,The soft south whither thine heart is set?Shall not the grief of the old time follow?Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,Thy way is long to the sun and the south;But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire,Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,From tawny body and sweet small mouthFeed the heart of the night with fire.I the nightingale all spring through,O swallow, sister, O changing swallow,All spring through till the spring be done,Clothed with the light of the night on the dew,Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow,Take flight and follow and find the sun.Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber,How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?For where thou fliest I shall not follow,Till life forget and death remember,Till thou remember and I forget.Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,I know not how thou hast heart to sing.Hast thou the heart? is it all past over?Thy lord the summer is good to follow,And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow,My heart in me is a molten emberAnd over my head the waves have met.But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow,Could I forget or thou remember,Couldst thou remember and I forget.O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,The heart's division divideth us.Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollowTo the place of the slaying of Itylus,The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,I pray thee sing not a little space.Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?The woven web that was plain to follow,The small slain body, the flowerlike face,Can I remember if thou forget?O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!The hands that cling and the feet that follow,The voice of the child's blood crying yetWho hath remembered me? who hath forgotten?Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,But the world shall end when I forget.
Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,How can thine heart be full of the spring?A thousand summers are over and dead.What hast thou found in the spring to follow?What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?
O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,The soft south whither thine heart is set?Shall not the grief of the old time follow?Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?
Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,Thy way is long to the sun and the south;But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire,Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,From tawny body and sweet small mouthFeed the heart of the night with fire.
I the nightingale all spring through,O swallow, sister, O changing swallow,All spring through till the spring be done,Clothed with the light of the night on the dew,Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow,Take flight and follow and find the sun.
Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber,How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?For where thou fliest I shall not follow,Till life forget and death remember,Till thou remember and I forget.
Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,I know not how thou hast heart to sing.Hast thou the heart? is it all past over?Thy lord the summer is good to follow,And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?
O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow,My heart in me is a molten emberAnd over my head the waves have met.But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow,Could I forget or thou remember,Couldst thou remember and I forget.
O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,The heart's division divideth us.Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollowTo the place of the slaying of Itylus,The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.
O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,I pray thee sing not a little space.Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?The woven web that was plain to follow,The small slain body, the flowerlike face,Can I remember if thou forget?
O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!The hands that cling and the feet that follow,The voice of the child's blood crying yetWho hath remembered me? who hath forgotten?Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,But the world shall end when I forget.
τίνος αὖ τὺ πειθοῖμὰψ σαγηνεύσας φιλότατα ;Sappho.
τίνος αὖ τὺ πειθοῖμὰψ σαγηνεύσας φιλότατα ;Sappho.
My life is bitter with thy love; thine eyesBlind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighsDivide my flesh and spirit with soft sound,And my blood strengthens, and my veins abound.I pray thee sigh not, speak not, draw not breath;Let life burn down, and dream it is not death.I would the sea had hidden us, the fire(Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire?)Severed the bones that bleach, the flesh that cleaves,And let our sifted ashes drop like leaves.I feel thy blood against my blood: my painPains thee, and lips bruise lips, and vein stings vein.Let fruit be crushed on fruit, let flower on flower,Breast kindle breast, and either burn one hour.Why wilt thou follow lesser loves? are thineToo weak to bear these hands and lips of mine?I charge thee for my life's sake, O too sweetTo crush love with thy cruel faultless feet,I charge thee keep thy lips from hers or his,Sweetest, till theirs be sweeter than my kiss.Lest I too lure, a swallow for a dove,Erotion or Erinna to my love.I would my love could kill thee; I am satiatedWith seeing thee live, and fain would have thee dead.I would earth had thy body as fruit to eat,And no mouth but some serpent's found thee sweet.I would find grievous ways to have thee slain,Intense device, and superflux of pain;Vex thee with amorous agonies, and shakeLife at thy lips, and leave it there to ache;Strain out thy soul with pangs too soft to kill,Intolerable interludes, and infinite ill;Relapse and reluctation of the breath,Dumb tunes and shuddering semitones of death.I am weary of all thy words and soft strange ways,Of all love's fiery nights and all his days,And all the broken kisses salt as brineThat shuddering lips make moist with waterish wine,And eyes the bluer for all those hidden hoursThat pleasure fills with tears and feeds from flowers,Fierce at the heart with fire that half comes through,But all the flowerlike white stained round with blue;The fervent underlid, and that aboveLifted with laughter or abashed with love;Thine amorous girdle, full of thee and fair,And leavings of the lilies in thine hair.Yea, all sweet words of thine and all thy ways,And all the fruit of nights and flower of days,And stinging lips wherein the hot sweet brineThat Love was born of burns and foams like wine,And eyes insatiable of amorous hours,Fervent as fire and delicate as flowers,Coloured like night at heart, but cloven throughLike night with flame, dyed round like night with blue,Clothed with deep eyelids under and above—Yea, all thy beauty sickens me with love;Thy girdle empty of thee and now not fair,And ruinous lilies in thy languid hair.Ah, take no thought for Love's sake; shall this be,And she who loves thy lover not love thee?Sweet soul, sweet mouth of all that laughs and lives,Mine is she, very mine; and she forgives.For I beheld in sleep the light that isIn her high place in Paphos, heard the kissOf body and soul that mix with eager tearsAnd laughter stinging through the eyes and ears;Saw Love, as burning flame from crown to feet,Imperishable, upon her storied seat;Clear eyelids lifted toward the north and south,A mind of many colours, and a mouthOf many tunes and kisses; and she bowed,With all her subtle face laughing aloud,Bowed down upon me, saying, "Who doth thee wrong,Sappho?" but thou—thy body is the song,Thy mouth the music; thou art more than I,Though my voice die not till the whole world die;Though men that hear it madden; though love weep,Though nature change, though shame be charmed to sleep.Ah, wilt thou slay me lest I kiss thee dead?Yet the queen laughed from her sweet heart and said:"Even she that flies shall follow for thy sake,And she shall give thee gifts that would not take,Shall kiss that would not kiss thee" (yea, kiss me)"When thou wouldst not"—when I would not kiss thee!Ah, more to me than all men as thou art,Shall not my songs assuage her at the heart?Ah, sweet to me as life seems sweet to death,Why should her wrath fill thee with fearful breath?Nay, sweet, for is she God alone? hath sheMade earth and all the centuries of the sea,Taught the sun ways to travel, woven most fineThe moonbeams, shed the starbeams forth as wine,Bound with her myrtles, beaten with her rods,The young men and the maidens and the gods?Have we not lips to love with, eyes for tears,And summer and flower of women and of years?Stars for the foot of morning, and for noonSunlight, and exaltation of the moon;Waters that answer waters, fields that wearLilies, and languor of the Lesbian air?Beyond those flying feet of fluttered doves,Are there not other gods for other loves?Yea, though she scourge thee, sweetest, for my sake,Blossom not thorns and flowers not blood should break.Ah that my lips were tuneless lips, but pressedTo the bruised blossom of thy scourged white breast!Ah that my mouth for Muses' milk were fedOn the sweet blood thy sweet small wounds had bled!That with my tongue I felt them, and could tasteThe faint flakes from thy bosom to the waist!That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eatThy breasts like honey! that from face to feetThy body were abolished and consumed,And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed!Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites,Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites.Ah sweet, and sweet again, and seven times sweet,The paces and the pauses of thy feet!Ah sweeter than all sleep or summer airThe fallen fillets fragrant from thine hair!Yea, though their alien kisses do me wrong,Sweeter thy lips than mine with all their song;Thy shoulders whiter than a fleece of white,And flower-sweet fingers, good to bruise or biteAs honeycomb of the inmost honey-cells,With almond-shaped and roseleaf-coloured shellsAnd blood like purple blossom at the tipsQuivering; and pain made perfect in thy lipsFor my sake when I hurt thee; O that IDurst crush thee out of life with love, and die,Die of thy pain and my delight, and beMixed with thy blood and molten into thee!Would I not plague thee dying overmuch?Would I not hurt thee perfectly? not touchThy pores of sense with torture, and make brightThine eyes with bloodlike tears and grievous light?Strike pang from pang as note is struck from note,Catch the sob's middle music in thy throat,Take thy limbs living, and new-mould with theseA lyre of many faultless agonies?Feed thee with fever and famine and fine drouth,With perfect pangs convulse thy perfect mouth,Make thy life shudder in thee and burn afresh,And wring thy very spirit through the flesh?Cruel? but love makes all that love him wellAs wise as heaven and crueller than hell.Me hath love made more bitter toward theeThan death toward man; but were I made as heWho hath made all things to break them one by one,If my feet trod upon the stars and sunAnd souls of men as his have alway trod,God knows I might be crueller than God.For who shall change with prayers or thanksgivingsThe mystery of the cruelty of things?Or say what God above all gods and yearsWith offering and blood-sacrifice of tears,With lamentation from strange lands, from gravesWhere the snake pastures, from scarred mouths of slaves,From prison, and from plunging prows of shipsThrough flamelike foam of the sea's closing lips—With thwartings of strange signs, and wind-blown hairOf comets, desolating the dim air,When darkness is made fast with seals and bars,And fierce reluctance of disastrous stars,Eclipse, and sound of shaken hills, and wingsDarkening, and blind inexpiable things—With sorrow of labouring moons, and altering lightAnd travail of the planets of the night,And weeping of the weary Pleiads seven,Feeds the mute melancholy lust of heaven?Is not his incense bitterness, his meatMurder? his hidden face and iron feetHath not man known, and felt them on their wayThreaten and trample all things and every day?Hath he not sent us hunger? who hath cursedSpirit and flesh with longing? filled with thirstTheir lips who cried unto him? who bade exceedThe fervid will, fall short the feeble deed,Bade sink the spirit and the flesh aspire,Pain animate the dust of dead desire,And life yield up her flower to violent fate?Him would I reach, him smite, him desecrate,Pierce the cold lips of God with human breath,And mix his immortality with death.Why hath he made us? what had all we doneThat we should live and loathe the sterile sun,And with the moon wax paler as she wanes,And pulse by pulse feel time grow through our veins?Thee too the years shall cover; thou shalt beAs the rose born of one same blood with thee,As a song sung, as a word said, and fallFlower-wise, and be not any more at all,Nor any memory of thee anywhere;For never Muse has bound above thine hairThe high Pierian flower whose graft outgrowsAll summer kinship of the mortal roseAnd colour of deciduous days, nor shedReflex and flush of heaven about thine head,Nor reddened brows made pale by floral griefWith splendid shadow from that lordlier leaf.Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine,Except these kisses of my lips on thineBrand them with immortality; but me—Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea,Nor mix their hearts with music, nor beholdCast forth of heaven, with feet of awful goldAnd plumeless wings that make the bright air blind,Lightning, with thunder for a hound behindHunting through fields unfurrowed and unsown,But in the light and laughter, in the moanAnd music, and in grasp of lip and handAnd shudder of water that makes felt on landThe immeasurable tremor of all the sea,Memories shall mix and metaphors of me.Like me shall be the shuddering calm of night,When all the winds of the world for pure delightClose lips that quiver and fold up wings that ache;When nightingales are louder for love's sake,And leaves tremble like lute-strings or like fire;Like me the one star swooning with desireEven at the cold lips of the sleepless moon,As I at thine; like me the waste white noon,Burnt through with barren sunlight; and like meThe land-stream and the tide-stream in the sea.I am sick with time as these with ebb and flow,And by the yearning in my veins I knowThe yearning sound of waters; and mine eyesBurn as that beamless fire which fills the skiesWith troubled stars and travailing things of flame;And in my heart the grief consuming themLabours, and in my veins the thirst of these,And all the summer travail of the treesAnd all the winter sickness; and the earth,Filled full with deadly works of death and birth,Sore spent with hungry lusts of birth and death,Has pain like mine in her divided breath;Her spring of leaves is barren, and her fruitAshes; her boughs are burdened, and her rootFibrous and gnarled with poison; underneathSerpents have gnawn it through with tortuous teethMade sharp upon the bones of all the dead,And wild birds rend her branches overhead.These, woven as raiment for his word and thought,These hath God made, and me as these, and wroughtSong, and hath lit it at my lips; and meEarth shall not gather though she feed on thee.As a shed tear shalt thou be shed; but I—Lo, earth may labour, men live long and die,Years change and stars, and the high God deviseNew things, and old things wane before his eyesWho wields and wrecks them, being more strong than they—But, having made me, me he shall not slay.Nor slay nor satiate, like those herds of hisWho laugh and live a little, and their kissContents them, and their loves are swift and sweet,And sure death grasps and gains them with slow feet,Love they or hate they, strive or bow their knees—And all these end; he hath his will of these.Yea, but albeit he slay me, hating me—Albeit he hide me in the deep dear seaAnd cover me with cool wan foam, and easeThis soul of mine as any soul of these,And give me water and great sweet waves, and makeThe very sea's name lordlier for my sake,The whole sea sweeter—albeit I die indeedAnd hide myself and sleep and no man heed,Of me the high God hath not all his will.Blossom of branches, and on each high hillClear air and wind, and under in clamorous valesFierce noises of the fiery nightingales,Buds burning in the sudden spring like fire,The wan washed sand and the waves' vain desire,Sails seen like blown white flowers at sea, and wordsThat bring tears swiftest, and long notes of birdsViolently singing till the whole world sings—I Sappho shall be one with all these things,With all high things for ever; and my faceSeen once, my songs once heard in a strange place,Cleave to men's lives, and waste the days thereofWith gladness and much sadness and long love.Yea, they shall say, earth's womb has borne in vainNew things, and never this best thing again;Borne days and men, borne fruits and wars and wine,Seasons and songs, but no song more like mine.And they shall know me as ye who have known me here,Last year when I loved Atthis, and this yearWhen I love thee; and they shall praise me, and say"She hath all time as all we have our day,Shall she not live and have her will"—even I?Yea, though thou diest, I say I shall not die.For these shall give me of their souls, shall giveLife, and the days and loves wherewith I live,Shall quicken me with loving, fill with breath,Save me and serve me, strive for me with death.Alas, that neither moon nor snow nor dewNor all cold things can purge me wholly through,Assuage me nor allay me nor appease,Till supreme sleep shall bring me bloodless ease;Till time wax faint in all his periods;Till fate undo the bondage of the gods,And lay, to slake and satiate me all through,Lotus and Lethe on my lips like dew,And shed around and over and under meThick darkness and the insuperable sea.
My life is bitter with thy love; thine eyesBlind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighsDivide my flesh and spirit with soft sound,And my blood strengthens, and my veins abound.I pray thee sigh not, speak not, draw not breath;Let life burn down, and dream it is not death.I would the sea had hidden us, the fire(Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire?)Severed the bones that bleach, the flesh that cleaves,And let our sifted ashes drop like leaves.I feel thy blood against my blood: my painPains thee, and lips bruise lips, and vein stings vein.Let fruit be crushed on fruit, let flower on flower,Breast kindle breast, and either burn one hour.Why wilt thou follow lesser loves? are thineToo weak to bear these hands and lips of mine?I charge thee for my life's sake, O too sweetTo crush love with thy cruel faultless feet,I charge thee keep thy lips from hers or his,Sweetest, till theirs be sweeter than my kiss.Lest I too lure, a swallow for a dove,Erotion or Erinna to my love.I would my love could kill thee; I am satiatedWith seeing thee live, and fain would have thee dead.I would earth had thy body as fruit to eat,And no mouth but some serpent's found thee sweet.I would find grievous ways to have thee slain,Intense device, and superflux of pain;Vex thee with amorous agonies, and shakeLife at thy lips, and leave it there to ache;Strain out thy soul with pangs too soft to kill,Intolerable interludes, and infinite ill;Relapse and reluctation of the breath,Dumb tunes and shuddering semitones of death.I am weary of all thy words and soft strange ways,Of all love's fiery nights and all his days,And all the broken kisses salt as brineThat shuddering lips make moist with waterish wine,And eyes the bluer for all those hidden hoursThat pleasure fills with tears and feeds from flowers,Fierce at the heart with fire that half comes through,But all the flowerlike white stained round with blue;The fervent underlid, and that aboveLifted with laughter or abashed with love;Thine amorous girdle, full of thee and fair,And leavings of the lilies in thine hair.Yea, all sweet words of thine and all thy ways,And all the fruit of nights and flower of days,And stinging lips wherein the hot sweet brineThat Love was born of burns and foams like wine,And eyes insatiable of amorous hours,Fervent as fire and delicate as flowers,Coloured like night at heart, but cloven throughLike night with flame, dyed round like night with blue,Clothed with deep eyelids under and above—Yea, all thy beauty sickens me with love;Thy girdle empty of thee and now not fair,And ruinous lilies in thy languid hair.Ah, take no thought for Love's sake; shall this be,And she who loves thy lover not love thee?Sweet soul, sweet mouth of all that laughs and lives,Mine is she, very mine; and she forgives.For I beheld in sleep the light that isIn her high place in Paphos, heard the kissOf body and soul that mix with eager tearsAnd laughter stinging through the eyes and ears;Saw Love, as burning flame from crown to feet,Imperishable, upon her storied seat;Clear eyelids lifted toward the north and south,A mind of many colours, and a mouthOf many tunes and kisses; and she bowed,With all her subtle face laughing aloud,Bowed down upon me, saying, "Who doth thee wrong,Sappho?" but thou—thy body is the song,Thy mouth the music; thou art more than I,Though my voice die not till the whole world die;Though men that hear it madden; though love weep,Though nature change, though shame be charmed to sleep.Ah, wilt thou slay me lest I kiss thee dead?Yet the queen laughed from her sweet heart and said:"Even she that flies shall follow for thy sake,And she shall give thee gifts that would not take,Shall kiss that would not kiss thee" (yea, kiss me)"When thou wouldst not"—when I would not kiss thee!Ah, more to me than all men as thou art,Shall not my songs assuage her at the heart?Ah, sweet to me as life seems sweet to death,Why should her wrath fill thee with fearful breath?Nay, sweet, for is she God alone? hath sheMade earth and all the centuries of the sea,Taught the sun ways to travel, woven most fineThe moonbeams, shed the starbeams forth as wine,Bound with her myrtles, beaten with her rods,The young men and the maidens and the gods?Have we not lips to love with, eyes for tears,And summer and flower of women and of years?Stars for the foot of morning, and for noonSunlight, and exaltation of the moon;Waters that answer waters, fields that wearLilies, and languor of the Lesbian air?Beyond those flying feet of fluttered doves,Are there not other gods for other loves?Yea, though she scourge thee, sweetest, for my sake,Blossom not thorns and flowers not blood should break.Ah that my lips were tuneless lips, but pressedTo the bruised blossom of thy scourged white breast!Ah that my mouth for Muses' milk were fedOn the sweet blood thy sweet small wounds had bled!That with my tongue I felt them, and could tasteThe faint flakes from thy bosom to the waist!That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eatThy breasts like honey! that from face to feetThy body were abolished and consumed,And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed!Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites,Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites.Ah sweet, and sweet again, and seven times sweet,The paces and the pauses of thy feet!Ah sweeter than all sleep or summer airThe fallen fillets fragrant from thine hair!Yea, though their alien kisses do me wrong,Sweeter thy lips than mine with all their song;Thy shoulders whiter than a fleece of white,And flower-sweet fingers, good to bruise or biteAs honeycomb of the inmost honey-cells,With almond-shaped and roseleaf-coloured shellsAnd blood like purple blossom at the tipsQuivering; and pain made perfect in thy lipsFor my sake when I hurt thee; O that IDurst crush thee out of life with love, and die,Die of thy pain and my delight, and beMixed with thy blood and molten into thee!Would I not plague thee dying overmuch?Would I not hurt thee perfectly? not touchThy pores of sense with torture, and make brightThine eyes with bloodlike tears and grievous light?Strike pang from pang as note is struck from note,Catch the sob's middle music in thy throat,Take thy limbs living, and new-mould with theseA lyre of many faultless agonies?Feed thee with fever and famine and fine drouth,With perfect pangs convulse thy perfect mouth,Make thy life shudder in thee and burn afresh,And wring thy very spirit through the flesh?Cruel? but love makes all that love him wellAs wise as heaven and crueller than hell.Me hath love made more bitter toward theeThan death toward man; but were I made as heWho hath made all things to break them one by one,If my feet trod upon the stars and sunAnd souls of men as his have alway trod,God knows I might be crueller than God.For who shall change with prayers or thanksgivingsThe mystery of the cruelty of things?Or say what God above all gods and yearsWith offering and blood-sacrifice of tears,With lamentation from strange lands, from gravesWhere the snake pastures, from scarred mouths of slaves,From prison, and from plunging prows of shipsThrough flamelike foam of the sea's closing lips—With thwartings of strange signs, and wind-blown hairOf comets, desolating the dim air,When darkness is made fast with seals and bars,And fierce reluctance of disastrous stars,Eclipse, and sound of shaken hills, and wingsDarkening, and blind inexpiable things—With sorrow of labouring moons, and altering lightAnd travail of the planets of the night,And weeping of the weary Pleiads seven,Feeds the mute melancholy lust of heaven?Is not his incense bitterness, his meatMurder? his hidden face and iron feetHath not man known, and felt them on their wayThreaten and trample all things and every day?Hath he not sent us hunger? who hath cursedSpirit and flesh with longing? filled with thirstTheir lips who cried unto him? who bade exceedThe fervid will, fall short the feeble deed,Bade sink the spirit and the flesh aspire,Pain animate the dust of dead desire,And life yield up her flower to violent fate?Him would I reach, him smite, him desecrate,Pierce the cold lips of God with human breath,And mix his immortality with death.Why hath he made us? what had all we doneThat we should live and loathe the sterile sun,And with the moon wax paler as she wanes,And pulse by pulse feel time grow through our veins?Thee too the years shall cover; thou shalt beAs the rose born of one same blood with thee,As a song sung, as a word said, and fallFlower-wise, and be not any more at all,Nor any memory of thee anywhere;For never Muse has bound above thine hairThe high Pierian flower whose graft outgrowsAll summer kinship of the mortal roseAnd colour of deciduous days, nor shedReflex and flush of heaven about thine head,Nor reddened brows made pale by floral griefWith splendid shadow from that lordlier leaf.Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine,Except these kisses of my lips on thineBrand them with immortality; but me—Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea,Nor mix their hearts with music, nor beholdCast forth of heaven, with feet of awful goldAnd plumeless wings that make the bright air blind,Lightning, with thunder for a hound behindHunting through fields unfurrowed and unsown,But in the light and laughter, in the moanAnd music, and in grasp of lip and handAnd shudder of water that makes felt on landThe immeasurable tremor of all the sea,Memories shall mix and metaphors of me.Like me shall be the shuddering calm of night,When all the winds of the world for pure delightClose lips that quiver and fold up wings that ache;When nightingales are louder for love's sake,And leaves tremble like lute-strings or like fire;Like me the one star swooning with desireEven at the cold lips of the sleepless moon,As I at thine; like me the waste white noon,Burnt through with barren sunlight; and like meThe land-stream and the tide-stream in the sea.I am sick with time as these with ebb and flow,And by the yearning in my veins I knowThe yearning sound of waters; and mine eyesBurn as that beamless fire which fills the skiesWith troubled stars and travailing things of flame;And in my heart the grief consuming themLabours, and in my veins the thirst of these,And all the summer travail of the treesAnd all the winter sickness; and the earth,Filled full with deadly works of death and birth,Sore spent with hungry lusts of birth and death,Has pain like mine in her divided breath;Her spring of leaves is barren, and her fruitAshes; her boughs are burdened, and her rootFibrous and gnarled with poison; underneathSerpents have gnawn it through with tortuous teethMade sharp upon the bones of all the dead,And wild birds rend her branches overhead.These, woven as raiment for his word and thought,These hath God made, and me as these, and wroughtSong, and hath lit it at my lips; and meEarth shall not gather though she feed on thee.As a shed tear shalt thou be shed; but I—Lo, earth may labour, men live long and die,Years change and stars, and the high God deviseNew things, and old things wane before his eyesWho wields and wrecks them, being more strong than they—But, having made me, me he shall not slay.Nor slay nor satiate, like those herds of hisWho laugh and live a little, and their kissContents them, and their loves are swift and sweet,And sure death grasps and gains them with slow feet,Love they or hate they, strive or bow their knees—And all these end; he hath his will of these.Yea, but albeit he slay me, hating me—Albeit he hide me in the deep dear seaAnd cover me with cool wan foam, and easeThis soul of mine as any soul of these,And give me water and great sweet waves, and makeThe very sea's name lordlier for my sake,The whole sea sweeter—albeit I die indeedAnd hide myself and sleep and no man heed,Of me the high God hath not all his will.Blossom of branches, and on each high hillClear air and wind, and under in clamorous valesFierce noises of the fiery nightingales,Buds burning in the sudden spring like fire,The wan washed sand and the waves' vain desire,Sails seen like blown white flowers at sea, and wordsThat bring tears swiftest, and long notes of birdsViolently singing till the whole world sings—I Sappho shall be one with all these things,With all high things for ever; and my faceSeen once, my songs once heard in a strange place,Cleave to men's lives, and waste the days thereofWith gladness and much sadness and long love.Yea, they shall say, earth's womb has borne in vainNew things, and never this best thing again;Borne days and men, borne fruits and wars and wine,Seasons and songs, but no song more like mine.And they shall know me as ye who have known me here,Last year when I loved Atthis, and this yearWhen I love thee; and they shall praise me, and say"She hath all time as all we have our day,Shall she not live and have her will"—even I?Yea, though thou diest, I say I shall not die.For these shall give me of their souls, shall giveLife, and the days and loves wherewith I live,Shall quicken me with loving, fill with breath,Save me and serve me, strive for me with death.Alas, that neither moon nor snow nor dewNor all cold things can purge me wholly through,Assuage me nor allay me nor appease,Till supreme sleep shall bring me bloodless ease;Till time wax faint in all his periods;Till fate undo the bondage of the gods,And lay, to slake and satiate me all through,Lotus and Lethe on my lips like dew,And shed around and over and under meThick darkness and the insuperable sea.