All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, | |
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, | |
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron | |
Stood and beheld me. | |
Then to me so lying awake a vision | |
Came without sleep over the seas and touched me, | |
Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I too, | |
Full of the vision, | |
Saw the white implacable Aphrodite, | |
10 | Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled |
Shine as fire of sunset on western waters; | |
Saw the reluctant | |
Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her, | |
Looking always, looking with necks reverted, | |
Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder | |
Shone Mitylene; | |
Heard the flying feet of the Loves behind her | |
Make a sudden thunder upon the waters, | |
As the thunder flung from the strong unclosing | |
20 | Wings of a great wind. |
So the goddess fled from her place, with awful | |
Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her; | |
While behind a clamour of singing women | |
Severed the twilight. | |
Ah the singing, ah the delight, the passion! | |
All the Loves wept, listening; sick with anguish, | |
Stood the crowned nine Muses about Apollo; | |
Fear was upon them, | |
While the tenth sang wonderful things they knew not. | |
30 | Ah the tenth, the Lesbian! the nine were silent, |
None endured the sound of her song for weeping; | |
Laurel by laurel, | |
Faded all their crowns; but about her forehead, | |
Round her woven tresses and ashen temples | |
White as dead snow, paler than grass in summer, | |
Ravaged with kisses, | |
Shone a light of fire as a crown for ever. | |
Yea, almost the implacable Aphrodite | |
Paused, and almost wept; such a song was that song. | |
40 | Yea, by her name too |
Called her, saying, ‘Turn to me, O my Sappho;’ | |
Yet she turned her face from the Loves, she saw not | |
Tears for laughter darken immortal eyelids, | |
Heard not about her | |
Fearful fitful wings of the doves departing, | |
Saw not how the bosom of Aphrodite | |
Shook with weeping, saw not her shaken raiment, | |
Saw not her hands wrung; | |
Saw the Lesbians kissing across their smitten | |
50 | Lutes with lips more sweet than the sound of lute-strings, |
Mouth to mouth and hand upon hand, her chosen, | |
Fairer than all men; | |
Only saw the beautiful lips and fingers, | |
Full of songs and kisses and little whispers, | |
Full of music; only beheld among them | |
Soar, as a bird soars | |
Newly fledged, her visible song, a marvel, | |
Made of perfect sound and exceeding passion, | |
Sweetly shapen, terrible, full of thunders, | |
60 | Clothed with the wind’s wings. |
Then rejoiced she, laughing with love, and scattered | |
Roses, awful roses of holy blossom; | |
Then the Loves thronged sadly with hidden faces | |
Round Aphrodite, | |
Then the Muses, stricken at heart, were silent; | |
Yea, the gods waxed pale; such a song was that song. | |
All reluctant, all with a fresh repulsion, | |
Fled from before her. | |
All withdrew long since, and the land was barren, | |
70 | Full of fruitless women and music only. |
Now perchance, when winds are assuaged at sunset, | |
Lulled at the dewfall, | |
By the grey sea-side, unassuaged, unheard of, | |
Unbeloved, unseen in the ebb of twilight, | |
Ghosts of outcast women return lamenting, | |
Purged not in Lethe, | |
Clothed about with flame and with tears, and singing | |
Songs that move the heart of the shaken heaven, | |
Songs that break the heart of the earth with pity, | |
80 | Hearing, to hear them. |