Читать книгу Sapphic Classics - Sappho - Страница 100

Table of Contents

Hark, my lover, it is spring!

On the wind a faint far call

Wakes a pang within my heart,

Unmistakable and keen.

At the harbour mouth a sail 5

Glimmers in the morning sun,

And the ripples at her prow

Whiten into crumbling foam,

As she forges outward bound

For the teeming foreign ports. 10

Through the open window now,

Hear the sailors lift a song!

In the meadow ground the frogs

With their deafening flutes begin—

The old madness of the world 15

In their golden throats again.

Little fifers of live bronze,

Who hath taught you with wise lore

To unloose the strains of joy,

When Orion seeks the west? 20

And you feathered flute-players,

Who instructed you to fill

All the blossomy orchards now

With melodious desire?

I doubt not our father Pan 25

Hath a care of all these things.

In some valley of the hills

Far away and misty-blue,

By quick water he hath cut

A new pipe, and set the wood 30

To his smiling lips, and blown,

That earth's rapture be restored.

And those wild Pandean stops

Mark the cadence life must keep.

O my lover, be thou glad; 35

It is spring in Hellas now.