Impassioned singer of the happy time.
When all the world was waking into morn,
And dew still glistened on the tangled thorn,
And lingered on the branches of the lime
Oh peerless singer of the golden rhyme,
Happy wert thou to live ere doubt was born
Before the joy of life was half out-worn,
And nymphs and satyrs vanished from your clime.
Then maidens bearing parsley in their hands
Wound thro' the groves to where the goddess stands,
And mariners might sail for unknown lands
Past sea-clasped islands veiled in mystery
And Venus still was shining from the sea,
And Ceres had not lost Persephone.
To Sappho I
written bySara Teasdale
© Sara Teasdale