Bearing you away from me,
Crying: “One must go alone!”
O that Voice, so like my own
Calling through the gloom for thee!—
For the love that life has known,
For the parting yet to be!
Sappho
Such joys and tears for them! Now I shall go
Quite gladly, with this more than anguish at
My over-aching heart, that cries for rest:
Yes, shade-like even now I seem,—this face
Sea-worn as Leucothea’s lonely face,
So wistful white at eve amid the waves
Where with sad eyes, men say, she gazes on
Earth’s failing hills and fields!
(She turns once more to the sea.)
Earth’s failing hills and fields! ’Tis good to sleep,
And alone, sad mother Ocean, let me lie;
Alone, gray mother, take me in your arms
Whose earthly sorrow once was deep as yours,
Whose passion was as vain, whose heart could sound
Thro’ all the sweetest meadows of this world
Only for evermore the morning lutes
Of loneliness and most unhappy love.
For once, in times I know not of, you too
Have loved and sorrowed, as your heart would say,
Mourning at dusk among your golden Isles.
I cannot call on mine old gods, for they
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