THE LAST SONG OF SAPPHO.
63
Sound on, thou dark unslumbering sea!
Sound in thy scorn and pride!
I ask not, alien world, from thee,
What my own kindred earth hath still denied.
And yet I lov'd that earth so well,
With all its lovely things!
—Was it for this the death-wind fell
On my rich lyre, and quench'd its living strings?
—Let them lie silent at my feet!
Since broken even as they,
The heart whose music made them sweet,
Hath pour'd on desert-sands its wealth away.
Yet glory's light hath touch'd my name,
The laurel-wreath is mine—
—With a lone heart, a weary frame—
O restless deep! I come to make them thine!
