Classic Poem

(Imaginary translation from the Spanish)

Through what extremes of passion
had you come, Sappho, to the peace
of deathless song?
As from an illness, as after drought
the streams released to flow
filling the fields with freshness
the birds drinking from every twig
and beasts from every hollow —
bellowing, singing of the unrestraint
to colors of a waking world.
So
after love a music streams above it.
For what is love? But music is
Villon beaten and cast off
Shakespeare from wisdom's grotto
looking doubtful at the world
Alighieri beginning all again
Goethe whom a rose ensnared
Li Po the drunkard, singers whom
love has overthrown —

To this company the birds themselves
and the sleek beasts belong and all
who will besides — when love is ended
to the waking of sweetest song.