Classic Poem

Mnasidika, to thee and me so dear,
In Sardis dwells, ah! far away;
Yet oft returns in recollection here
Where, on a time, we three have lived our day,
When most thy song could please her ear
And thou a glorious goddess didst appear.

But now amid the Lydian dames supreme
She shines, as when — the daylight fled —
Appears the rosy-fingered moon, agleam
Amid the encircling stars, and there is shed
Alike on Ocean's bitter stream
And on the flowery meads an equal beam.

And then there falls abroad the lovely dew;
The rose, the anthrisc, flower again;
The blossoming honey-lotus lives anew. . . .
But straying oft, with many a yearning pain
To stab her tender bosom through,
She thinks on Atthis with a heart still true,

And loudly calls us thither. This we know
For Night, the all-hearing, brings her cry
To us across the seas that sundering flow ...