Читать книгу Sapphic Classics - Sappho - Страница 105

Table of Contents

Now the hundred songs are made,

And the pause comes. Loving Heart,

There must be an end to summer,

And the flute be laid aside.

On a day the frost will come, 5

Walking through the autumn world,

Hushing all the brave endeavour

Of the crickets in the grass.

On a day (Oh, far from now!)

Earth will hear this voice no more; 10

For it shall be with thy lover

As with Linus long ago.

All the happy songs he wrought

From remembrance soon must fade,

As the wash of silver moonlight 15

From a purple-dark ravine.

Frail as dew upon the grass

Or the spindrift of the sea,

Out of nothing they were fashioned

And to nothing must return. 20

Nay, but something of thy love,

Passion, tenderness, and joy,

Some strange magic of thy beauty,

Some sweet pathos of thy tears,

Must imperishably cling 25

To the cadence of the words,

Like a spell of lost enchantments

Laid upon the hearts of men.

Wild and fleeting as the notes

Blown upon a woodland pipe, 30

They must haunt the earth with gladness

And a tinge of old regret.

For the transport in their rhythm

Was the throb of thy desire,

And thy lyric moods shall quicken 35

Souls of lovers yet unborn.

When the golden days arrive,

With the swallow at the eaves,

And the first sob of the south-wind

Sighing at the latch with spring, 40

Long hereafter shall thy name

Be recalled through foreign lands,

And thou be a part of sorrow

When the Linus songs are sung.