XIX
Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα
καὶ Πληΐαδες, μέσαι δέ
νύκτες, παρὰ δ’ ἔρχετ’ ὤρα,
ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεὐδω·
WHEN longing on my couch I lay,
The moon shone clear above the bay,
And whether Heaven's queen,
With her dread power,
Did come me and my love between,
Whether in Dian's holy air he chilled,
I know not: the sweet hour
Is unfulfilled.
Athwart the grove the Pleiades
Beamed clear—a lovely cluster these.
I mused how it befell
That Sterope
Loved her Oenomaus so well
She flitted from her shining sisters' side,
And in obscurity
Became his bride.
O blessed, secret, shamed one!
Now e'en the Pleiades are gone;
Now is it full midnight:
Thus should I be
Hid in the tomb from all men's sight!
O Hades, take this heart, these limbs that yearn,
Yea, I will give them thee,
Ash for thine urn !
Bethink thee, love, time passes by,
A little while before we die
Is Aphrodite's own.
And what were life
Without the mystery of her zone,
Her rosy altars, and her heavenly fires,
Warm, to assuage the strife
Of vain desires ?
The moon is gone, yet he delays,
The stars are set, but Sappho stays ;
And can it be that death,
Jealous, hath sped
To suck from me my Phaon's balmy breath ?
I stifle in my heart the funeral moan :
I do not weep the dead ;
I lie alone.
