Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer

“ Sappho
The wave remembers not, till reed by reed
The lyric shores of youth lie ruinous;
It was not much I asked in those old days;—
As waters come whence reeds may never see,
So men have wider missions than we know.
’Tis not thro’ all their moods they hunger for
Our poor pale faces; as a flame at sea
They seek us in the gloom, and then forget.
’Tis when by dusk the battle-sweat has dried;
’Tis when the port is won, and wind and storm
Are past; ’tis when the heart for solace aches ”

“ Is strong, and this great heart as daring as
That dusky night in Lesbos long ago!
Sappho
Stop, son of passion,—hear!
Phaon
Stop, son of passion,—hear! Not till these arms,
O Oriole-throated woman, hold and fold
About your beauty as in Lesbos once!
Sappho
By all the hours you darkened, by the love
You crushed and left forsaken, hear me now!
Phaon
Thus women change! thus in their time forget!
Sappho
There lies the sorrow—if we could forget! ”

“ And when strange dreams make deep the idle hour;
Then would I have my name sing throbbingly
Thro’ some beloved heart, soft as a bird,—
And swing with it—swing sweet as silver bells!
Not all your hours I hoped to see you turn
To my poor face; but when the wayside flower
Shone through the dust and won the softer mood,
And when the soul aspired for better things,
Disturbed by voices calling past the Dawn,
I hoped your troubled eyes would seek my eyes. ”

“ Joy was not joy, and living was not life.
So unreluctantly the long years went,
Though I had all that we, the gods, have asked,
Drunk with life’s wine, I could not sing the grape,
And knew not once, till Hades touched my hand
And made me wise, how good the world could be.
Now, now I know the solace and the thrill
Of passing Autumns and awakening Springs;
I know and love the Darkness, many-voiced,
Since Night it was that taught me to be strong ”

“ And life amid the coldness of the world
Did seem to me so feeble on the Deep,
Poised like a sea-bird on some tumbling crest
As you called faintly back across the waves,
That one must love it as a little flower—
So strange, that one must guard it as a child. ”

“ Phaon
Madness throbs thro’ her, and I fear this mood.
Sappho
The waves are softer with their dead, and winds
More kindly are with leaves in winter than
Men’s cruel love, that kills and buries not! ”

“ Nay, Violet-Crowned, once in our time we loved,
The hand of that love’s ghost shall lead you back.
Life, without you—life is an empty nest!
A grove with god and altar lost! A lute
Whereon no lonely fingers ever stray. ”

“ DEDICATION
What bird that climbs the cool dim Dawn
But loves the air its wild wings roam?
And yet when all the day is gone
But turns its weary pinions home,
And when the yellow twilight fills
The lonely stretches of the West,
Comes down across the darkened hills,
Once more to its remembered nest? ”

“ Others shall thrill with joy like unto mine;
Vague things shall move them and strange voices steal
Through sad, bud-scented April eves to them.
Round them shall fall a glory not of earth,
As now o’er these Sicilian meadows fall
Dim memories that come I know not whence.
In lands I know not of some sorrowing girl
Shall faintly breathe: “I am Persephone
On such a day!” and through the world shall run
The immemorial rapture and the pangs,
And pale-eyed ghosts shall creep out to the light
And drink the sun, like wine, and live once more. ”

“ On winter nights when all the waves were black,
In musing-wise had told them tales and dreams
Of Lesbian days, e’en though the words should sound
To my remembering heart, so far from home,
As mournful as the wind to imprisoned men;
—Old tales they should re-tell long ages hence
Unto their children’s children by the fire
When loud the dark South-West that brings the rain
Moaned round their eaves. ”

“ For me, the solitary dreamer, now shall hold
Voices and faces that I knew not of.
More, henceforth, shall all music mean to me,
And she, through lonely musings, ever seem
As beautiful as are the dead. ”

“ And men with wondering eyes shall watch the Spring
Return, and weep, indeed, these selfsame tears,
And laugh with my good laughter, knowing not
Whence came their passing bliss so torn with pain.
For good is Enna, and the wide, glad Earth,
And good the comfortable green of grass
And Nysian meadows still so milky pale;
Good seems the dark steer in the noonday sun,
The ploughman’s keel that turns black waves of loam,
The laughing girls, the fluting shepherd boys,
And beautiful the song of many birds ”

“ Child of unrest and change, still through her sweeps
Her natal sea’s tumultuous waywardness!
And losing her, lo, one thin drifting cloud
Curls idly from the altar in that grove
Where burn the fires that know not change or death!
Yet she shall move the strange desires of men;
For in her lie dim glories that she dreams
Not of, and on her ever broods a light
Her Cyprian eyes ne’er saw; and evermore
Round her pale face shall pleading faces press ”

“ Sappho, of Lesbos, stands on the brink of the cliff, and at her feet kneels Phaon, of Mitylene. As they gaze seaward a group of young shepherds pass from the Temple, and a voice in the distance is heard singing. ”

“ And only whispered of by restless Shades
Rememb’ring shadowy things across their dusk?—
Or how I often asked: “Canst thou, dark heart,
Remember home? So far and long forlorn
Canst thou, my heart, remember Sicily?” ”