Читать книгу Sapphic Classics - Sappho - Страница 92

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As, on a morn, a traveller might emerge

From the deep green seclusion of the hills,

By a cool road through forest and through fern,

Little frequented, winding, followed long

With joyous expectation and day-dreams, 5

And on a sudden, turning a great rock

Covered with frondage, dark with dripping water,

Behold the seaboard full of surf and sound,

With all the space and glory of the world

Above the burnished silver of the sea—10

Even so it was upon that first spring day

When time, that is a devious path for men,

Led me all lonely to thy door at last;

And all thy splendid beauty, gracious and glad,

(Glad as bright colour, free as wind or air, 15

And lovelier than racing seas of foam)

Bore sense and soul and mind at once away

To a pure region where the gods might dwell,

Making of me, a vagrant child before,

A servant of joy at Aphrodite's will. 20