I SAW, I saw the lovely child,
I watch'd her by the way,
I learnt her gestures sweet and wild,
Her loving eyes and gay.

Her name?—I heard not, nay, nor care; 5
Enough it was for me
To find her innocently fair
And delicately free.

Oh, cease and go ere dreams be done,
Nor trace the angel's birth, 10
Nor find the Paradisal one
A blossom of the earth!

Thus is it with our subtlest joys,—
How quick the soul's alarm!
How lightly deed or word destroys 15

I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.

I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.

I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,

I played day and night with my comrades,
and now I am greatly afraid.

So high is my Lord's palace,
my heart trembles to mount its stairs:
yet I must not be shy, if I would enjoy His love.

My heart must cleave to my Lover;
I must withdraw my veil,
and meet Him with all my body:

Mine eyes must perform the ceremony of the lamps of love.

Kabîr says: 'Listen to me, friend:
he understands who loves.
If you feel not love's longing for your Beloved One,
it is vain to adorn your body,

I only wish to love you
A storm fills the valley
A fish the river

I have made you the size of my solitude
The whole world to hide in
Days and nights to understand

To see no more in your eyes
Than what I think of you
And a world in your image

And days and nights ruled by your eyelids.

I loved illustrious cities and the crowds
That eddy through their incandescent nights.
I loved remote horizons with far clouds
Girdled, and fringed about with snowy heights.
I loved fair women, their sweet, conscious ways
Of wearing among hands that covet and plead
The rose ablossom at the rainbow's base
That bounds the world's desire and all its need.
Nature I worshipped, whose fecundity
Embraces every vision the most fair,
Of perfect benediction. From a boy
I gloated on existence. Earth to me

I loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain...
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness - though in vain -
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.


Translated by Genia Gurarie, 11/10/95

(Sappho XXIII)
I loved thee, Atthis, in the long ago,
When the great oleanders were in flower
In the broad herded meadows full of sun.
And we would often at the fall of dusk
Wander together by the silver stream,
When the soft grass-heads were all wet with dew
And purple-miste d in the fading light.
And joy I knew and sorrow at thy voice,
And the superb magnificence of love,—
The loneliness that saddens solitude,
And the sweet speech that makes it durable,—
The bitter longing and the keen desire,

I loved a lass, a fair one,
As fair as e’er was seen;
She was indeed a rare one,
Another Sheba Queen:
But, fool as then I was,
I thought she loved me too:
But now, alas! she’s left me,
Falero, lero, loo!
Her hair like gold did glister,
Each eye was like a star,
She did surpass her sister,
Which pass’d all others far;
She would me ‘honey’ call,
She’d—O she’d kiss me too!
But now, alas! she’s left me,
Falero, lero, loo!
In summer time to Medley
My love and I would go;
The boatmen there stood read’ly

I loved; yet not even one
Of those I loved ever knew
How dearly, how well I loved...
Who knows how to read the heart?

Now, even those who inspired
The greatest of my raptures,
The deepest of my sorrows,
Alas... don't recognize me.

You'd think my love that river
Which took its boundless currents
From the snows of the tall peaks;
Yet the peaks never noticed.

Or you'd think my love that door
That no one knocked and entered;
Covered with fargrant flowers,
A secret grove was my love.

I love, alas! yet am not loved,
For cruel she to pity is not moved.
My constant love with scorn she ill rewardeth,
Only my sighs a little she regardeth:
Yet more and more the quenchless fire increaseth,
Which, to my greater torment, never ceaseth.