Tread under foot the hyacinth,
And on the ground the purple flower lies crushed."
She sings also of the golden pulse that grows on the shores, and of the pure, soft bloom of the grass trampled under foot by the Cretan women as they dance round the fair altar of Aphrodite. The rose seems to have been her favorite flower, for, says Philostratus, "Sappho loves the rose, and always crowns it with some praise, likening beautiful maidens to it."
The birds, too, found in her a most sympathetic friend. Her ear is open to:
"Spring's messenger, the sweet-voiced nightingale,"
and she pities the wood-doves as "their heart turns cold and their wings fall," under the stroke from the arrow of the archer.
Sappho's love for nature is only surpassed by her love for art, for splendor and festivity, as they appeal to the æsthetic nature. She loves her lyre, the song and the dance, garlands, purple robes, and all that attended the worship of Aphrodite and the Muses. Her lyre she thus addresses:
"Come, then, my lyre divine!
Let speech be thine."
And to Aphrodite she utters this appeal: