Part 9 (1/2)

The other maidens raised their eyes to him Who stumbled in before them when the fight Had left him victor, with a victor's right.

I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim; He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim, And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might, Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light As a wan wraith's beside a river's rim.

The other maidens raised their eyes to see And only she has hid her face away, And yet I ween she loved him more than they, And very fairly fas.h.i.+oned was her face.

Yet for Love's shame and sweet humility, She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.

To an Aeolian Harp

The winds have grown articulate in thee, And voiced again the wail of ancient woe That smote upon the winds of long ago: The cries of Trojan women as they flee, The quivering moan of pale Andromache, Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.

It is the soul of sorrow that we know, As in a sh.e.l.l the soul of all the sea.

So sometimes in the compa.s.s of a song, Unknown to him who sings, thro' lips that live, The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong In sweeping sadness of the winds that give Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.

To Erinna

Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind, O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre, That he has left no word of singing fire Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind, And kindled night along the lyric sh.o.r.e?

O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss, Do you go sorrowing because of this In fields where poets sing forevermore?

Or are you glad and is it best to be A silent music men have never heard, A dream in all our souls that we may say: ”Her voice had all the rapture of the sea, And all the clear cool quiver of a bird Deep in a forest at the break of day”?

To Cleis

”I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, Cleis, the beloved.”

Sapphic fragment.

When the dusk was wet with dew, Cleis, did the muses nine Listen in a silent line While your mother sang to you?

Did they weep or did they smile When she crooned to still your cries, She, a muse in human guise, Who forsook her lyre awhile?

Did you feel her wild heart beat?

Did the warmth of all the sun Thro' your little body run When she kissed your hands and feet?

Did your fingers, babywise, Touch her face and touch her hair, Did you think your mother fair, Could you bear her burning eyes?

Are the songs that soothed your fears Vanished like a vanished flame, Save the line where s.h.i.+nes your name Starlike down the graying years?