Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics Part 16

Now the hundred songs are made, And the pause comes. Loving Heart, There must be an end to summer, And the flute be laid aside.

On a day the frost will come, 5 Walking through the autumn world, Hus.h.i.+ng all the brave endeavour Of the crickets in the gra.s.s.

On a day (Oh, far from now!) Earth will hear this voice no more; 10 For it shall be with thy lover As with Linus long ago.

All the happy songs he wrought From remembrance soon must fade, As the wash of silver moonlight 15 From a purple-dark ravine.

Frail as dew upon the gra.s.s Or the spindrift of the sea, Out of nothing they were fas.h.i.+oned And to nothing must return. 20

Nay, but something of thy love, Pa.s.sion, tenderness, and joy, Some strange magic of thy beauty, Some sweet pathos of thy tears,

Must imperishably cling 25 To the cadence of the words, Like a spell of lost enchantments Laid upon the hearts of men.

Wild and fleeting as the notes Blown upon a woodland pipe, 30 They must haunt the earth with gladness And a tinge of old regret.

For the transport in their rhythm Was the throb of thy desire, And thy lyric moods shall quicken 35 Souls of lovers yet unborn.

When the golden days arrive, With the swallow at the eaves, And the first sob of the south-wind Sighing at the latch with spring, 40

Long hereafter shall thy name Be recalled through foreign lands, And thou be a part of sorrow When the Linus songs are sung.

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1. THE LOVE OF BOOKS: being the Philobiblon of RICHARD DE BURY.

Translated by E.C. THOMAS. Frontispiece, Seal of Richard de Bury (as Bishop of Durham).

3. THE CHRONICLE OF JOCELIN OF BRAKELOND, MONK OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY: a Picture of Monastic and Social Life in the XIIth Century.

Newly translated, from the original Latin, with notes, table of dates relating to the Abbey of St. Edmundsbury, and index, by L.C. JANE, M.A., sometime Exhibitioner in Modern History at University College, Oxon., and with an Introduction by the Right Rev. Abbot GASQUET. Frontispiece, Seal of Abbot Samson (A.D. 1200).

***20. THE NUN'S RULE, or Ancren Riwle, in Modern English.