Whose orators and poets sway the soul
As the winds move the sea's unstable face;
O wonderous city, nurse and home of mind,
This is my oracle to you this day—
No generous growth from starved roots will you find,
But fruitless blossoms weakening to decay.
You take my meaning? Sappho is no more,
And no more Sapphos will be, in your time;
The tree is dead on one side that before
Ran with such burning sap of love and rhyme.