O thou of divers-coloured mind, O thou
Deathless, God’s daughter subtle-souled
...
Child of God, close craftswoman, I beseech thee;
Bid not ache nor agony break nor master,
Lady, my spirit.
(On the Cliffs)
In the same poem the mature Swinburne comes closer than in his youth to Sappho, when he says: “The tawny sweet-winged thing, Whose cry was but of spring.” But even in this poem he dilutes Sappho’s one line into six or more:
‘I loved thee’—hark, one tenderer note than all—
‘Atthis, of old time once’—one low long fall,