Say for what boon most with a frenzied longing
Yearns thy soul—say whom shall my glamour chaining
Hale thy love's thrall, Sappho?—and who is wronging
Thee with disdaining?
Who avoids thee soon shall be thy pursuer:
Ay, the gift-rejecter the giver shall now be:
Ay, the loveless now shall become the wooer,
Scornful shalt thou be!"
Once again come! Come, and my chains dissever,
Chains of heart-ache! Passionate longings rend me—
Oh fulfil them! Thou in the strife be ever
Near, to defend me!
II.
To a Beloved One.
Of this ode only the first four stanzas and the first line of the fifth survive: the remainder has been constructed by combining fragments 15, 25, 17, 9, and 13, with connections supplied by the translator.
Blest as Gods immortal is he, meseemeth,
Who, when thou dost witchingly speak, may hear thee,
Darling, while his gaze upon thine eyes dreameth,
Sitting anear thee,
