Sappho’s Death Song
(On Her Sea-Cliff in Leucady)
What have I gathered the years did not take from me?
(Swallows, hear, as you fly from the cold!)
Whom have I bound to me never to break from me?
(Whom, O wind of the wold?)
Whom, O wind! O hunter of spirits!
(Pierce his spirit whose spear is in mine!)
Then let Oblivion loose this ache from me, Proserpine!
Lyre and the laurel the Muses gave to me,
(Why comes summer when winter is nigh!)
Spent am I now and pain-voices rave to me.
(O sea and its cry!)
O the sea that has suffered all sorrow!
(Sea of the Delphian tongue ever shrill!)
Nought from the wreck of love can now save to me
Any thrill!
Life that we live passes pale or amorous.
(Tread, O vintagers, grapes in the press!)
Mine’s but a prey to Erinñyes clamorous.
(O for wine that will bless!)
Wine that foams, but is free of all madness
(Free, O Cypris, of fury’s breath!)
Free as I now shall be, O glamorous
Queen of Death!