Not in the lyre of Orpheus,
Not in the songs of Musæus,
Lurked the unfathomed bewitchment
Wrought by the wind in the grasses, 10
Held by the rote of the sea-surf,
In early summer.
Only to exquisite lovers,
Fashioned for beauty’s fulfilment,
Mated as rhythm to reed-stop 15
Whence the wild music is moulded,
Ever appears the full measure
Of the world’s wonder.
XXXIV
“Who was Atthis?” men shall ask,
When the world is old, and time
Has accomplished without haste
The strange destiny of men.
Haply in that far-off age 5
One shall find these silver songs,
With their human freight, and guess
What a lover Sappho was.
XXXV
When the great pink mallow
Blossoms in the marshland,
Full of lazy summer
And soft hours,
Then I hear the summons 5
Not a mortal lover
Ever yet resisted,
Strange and far.
In the faint blue foothills,
Making magic music, 10
Pan is at his love-work
On the reeds.
I can guess the heart-stop,
Fall and lull and sequence,
Full of grief for Syrinx 15
Long ago.