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Poems - The Torments of Love

The Torments of Love

by Sappho

Fragments 84, 45, 82, 36, 38, 37, 40, 80, 50, 55, and 42 combined.

O Queens of Song, descend from your home.
From the golden halls of Olumpus on high!
O shell divine, now, now become
Voiceful, to utter mine heart's wild cry!
O Calliope, vouchsafe thine aid
Unto one whom the Muse of Love hath betrayed!
Ah me, I know not what to do
Who am wildered all, in a strait betwixt two!
I cry from a homeless heart storm-tossed
As a child for her mother, a young child lost.
Yet not after all-unattainable things
Do I strain, nor I hope on passion's wings
To soar to the heavens' empyreal blue.
But oh, I yearn, how I yearn to slake
My thirst where Love's feet brush the dew!
For he who the strength of the mighty can break,
He whose bitter sweetness no tongue may tell,
The dragon whose onslaught none may quell,
Love — mine whole being doth Love's breath shake.

Ah, sleep I cannot: soft-cushioned bed
Wooes never my wearied frame to sleep;
No pillow brings rest to my throbbing head.
From my couch, as one in a nightmare, I leap.
Ever Eros is tossing to and fro
My spirit, as when great storm-winds blow
O'er a tempest-tormented mountain-steep,
And down on its groaning oak-woods sweep;
So groaneth my spirit, love-scourged so.

by: Sappho (c. 610-570 B.C.)
translated by Arthur S. Way

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