If it is a woman who has read it, O Guardian Zeus protect me! for she will tell it to all the world or she will take my lover from me. XL SONG “The night is so profound that it penetrates my eyes.--Thou seest not the road. Thou wilt lose thyself in the forest. “The noise of falling waters fills my ears.--Thou wouldst not hear the voice of thy lover though he were not twenty steps away. “The perfume of the flowers is so powerful that I grow faint and I shall fall.--Thou wouldst not know even if he crossed thy path. “Ah! he is very far from here, on the other side of the mountain; but I see him and I hear him and I feel him as though he touched me.” XLI THE OATH “When the water of the river remounts to the snow-hidden summits: when barley and wheat is sown in the moving furrows of the sea: “When the pines grow from the lakes and the water-lilies from the rocks: when the sun becomes black, when the moon falls upon the grass: “Then, but only then, I will take another woman and I will forget thee, Bilitis, soul of my life, heart of my heart.” He has said that to me, he has said that to me! What matters the rest of the world; where art thou, boundless happiness which can compare with my happiness! XLII THE NIGHT It is now I who search for him. Each night, very softly, I leave the house and I go by a long path, to his meadow, to see him sleeping. Sometimes I rest for a long time without speaking, happy merely in seeing him, and I approach my lips to his and kiss only his breath. Then suddenly I cast myself upon him. He awakens in my arms, and he cannot raise himself, for I struggle. He gives up, and laughs, and clasps me. Thus we play in the night. ... First dawn, O wicked light, thou already! In what ever-darkened cave, on what subterranean meadow, can we love so long that we may lose remembrance of thee.... XLIII CRADLE-SONG Sleep: I have sent to Sardis for thy toys, and for thy raiment to Babylon. Sleep, thou art the daughter of Bilitis and a king of the rising sun. The wood is the palace which was built for thee alone and which I have given to thee. The trunks of the pines are the columns; the high branches are the arches. Sleep. That he may not awaken thee, I will sell the sun to the sea. The breeze from the wings of a dove is less light than thy breath. Daughter of mine, flesh of my flesh, when thou openest thine eyes, say whether thou wishest the plain or the city or the mountain or the moon or the white cortège of the gods. XLIV THE TOMB OF THE NAIADS Through the woods covered with hoarfrost, I walked; my hair before my mouth glistened with little icicles, and my sandals were heavy with clinging and heaped-up snow.