I had no gift to give you when you passed, And wrongs were all the gifts received from thee, I had no words to tell you at the last But these: "Forgo not life, forget not me." And when I heard, told by some casual tongue, That thou wert gone, Grief turned me then to stone, Voiceless I stood as though I ne'er had sung, Pulseless and lost, for ever more alone. Without a sigh, without a tear to shed, Grief held me, Grief who has no word to say. Then, rising as one rises from the dead, My soul broke forth as one breaks forth to slay. Rending and wounding all this frame of mine, Cursing the Gods, the moments and the years, Now like the clouds of storm, where lightnings shine, Uplifted, then resolving into tears. Debased, when turns my brother in his scorn My grief to laughter, pointing to my child; Till madness takes me as the fire the corn And, in reviling thee, I stand reviled. Ah! but at night, At night I turn to thee. In dreams our limbs are joined, as flame with flame, In dreams again your arms are girdling me, I taste your soul in joys I blush to name. Ah! but the day that follows on the night, The emptiness that drives me to the plain To seek those spots that knew my lost delight, The grotto that shall shield us not again. Here lies the grass we pressed in deeds of love, Lips, limbs entwined--I kiss the ground to-day. The herbs lie withered, and the birds that move Are songless, and the very trees are grey. Night takes the day and falls upon the groves, The nightingale alone is left to cry, Lamenting, in the song that sorrow loves, To Tereus she calls, to Phaon, I. II There is a spring, through whose cool water shows The sand like silver, clear as seen through air. There is a spring, above whose mirror grows A lotus like a grove in flower fair. Here, as I lay in tears, a spirit stood Born of the water, then she called to me, Sappho, pursuing Love, by Grief pursued, Sappho, beside the blue Leucadian sea There stands a rock, and there above the caves, Whose wandering echoes reach Apollo's fane, Down leaping to the blue and breaking waves, Lovers find sleep, nor dream of love again. Deucalion here found ease from Pyrrah's scorn, Sappho arise, and where the sharp cliffs fall, Thy body, that had better not been born, Cast to the waves, the blue, blue waves that call. I rise, and weeping silently, I go. My fear is great, my love is greater still. Better oblivion than the love I know, Kinder than Phaon's is the blue wave's will.