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The Poems of Sappho, by John Myers O'Hara, [1910], at sacred-texts.com


p. 35

CLËIS

Daughter of mine, so fair,
  With a form like a golden flower,
Wherefore thy pensive air
  And the dreams in the myrtle bower?

Clëis, beloved, thy eyes
  That are turned from my gaze, thy hand
That trembles so, I prize
  More than all the Lydian land;

More than the lovely hills
  With the Lesbian olive crowned;—
Tell me, darling, what ills
  In the gloom of thy thought are found?

Daughter of mine, come near
  And thy head on my knees recline;
Whisper and never fear,
  For the beat of thy heart is mine.

Sweet mother, I can turn
  With content to my loom no more;
My bosom throbs, I yearn
  For a youth that my eyes adore;

Lykas of Eresus,
  Whom I knew when a little child;
My heart by Love is thus
  With the sweetest of pain beguiled.


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