To M. S.
(A Fragment.)
Sappho, your wild songs to the wind,
The wild west wind,
Recall an island to my mind,
All mist-enshrined,
Girt round with waves that break with force,
Fearful, yet kind.
Sappho, your sad songs to the sea,
The southern sea,
Bring back sweet mem’ries of the waves,
The waves to me,
And wild swans flying o’er the white
Sands, by the sea.
Sappho, the finest of your songs,
“Hark to the rain!”
Sends shivering through and through my heart
Its sad refrain,
Just as a broken lute-string strikes
A soul in pain!
The Song of Timùr the Lame.
(Imitated from the Persian)
Listen to me, my nightingale,
My darling, my light, and my rose!
I am sick of war and carnage,
I long for peace and repose.
My scimetar’s flash in the light
Is not so bright as thy glances,
And the beams ’neath thine eyelids bright
Shame the flash of my spearmen’s lances.
Catullus, Carmina xxxi., l. 12 to end.
“Salve, o venusta Sirmio, atque hero gaude,
Gaudete vos, O Lydiae lacus undae,
Ridete quicquid est domi cachinnorum.”
“Hail, lovely Sirmio, and rejoice in me,
Rejoice, O tumbling Lydian waves, and see
In all my home peal out the laughter free!”