In all honesty, I want to die.’
Leaving for good after a good long cry,
She said: ‘We both have suffered terribly,
But, Sappho, it is hard to say goodbye.’
I said: ‘Go with my blessing if you go
Always remembering what we did. To me
You have meant everything, as you well know.
‘Yet, lest it slip your mind, I shall review
Everything we have shared – the good times, too:
‘You culled violets and roses, bloom and stem,
Often in spring and I looked on as you
Wove a bouquet into a diadem.
‘Time and again we plucked lush flowers, wed
Spray after spray in strands and fastened them
Around your soft neck; you perfumed your head
‘Of glossy curls with myrrh – lavish infusions
In queenly quantities – then on a bed
Prepared with fleecy sheets and yielding cushions,
‘Sated your craving …'
The eyes that mock me sign the way
Whereto I pass at eve of day.
Grey way whose violet signals are
The trysting and the twining star.
Ah star of evil! star of pain!
Highhearted youth comes not again
Nor old heart's wisdom yet to know
The signs that mock me as I go.