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.

I love you, goddesses of singing,
But your invasion, so fine,
That tremor of the spirit thrilling,
Is a herald of the future pines.

The Muses' love and Fortune's striking
Are one. I'm silent. I'm afraid:
My fingers, casting on the light strings,
Might here awake these storms and lightnings
In which my sleeping fate was laid.

And, with strong torments ever wound,
I leave the Muse, who favours me,
And say: "Till tomorrow, sounds,
Let the day expire quietly."

I love you with my every breath,
I make you songs like thunder birds,
Give you my life—you give me death
And stab me with your dreadful words.

You laid my head against your heart
Last night, my lips upon your breast
And now you say that we must part
For fear your heart should be oppressed:

You cannot go against the world
For my sake only—thus your phrase,
But I—God’s beauty is unfurled
In your gold hair, and in your gaze

The wisdom of God’s bride—each soul
That shares his love, and yours and mine,

I love you means I love all.
I love you means I love both great and small.

Love begins at home and home means you.
You are ever old, you are ever new.