To lovers everything is love — the faltering voice, the burning
blush,
the languid eye — and fainting to a mortal paleness, calling
out for love
from a thousand hills and mountaintops they whisper her name,
changing
into swans as they fall…
They call Sappho in that death-defying leap. They sing Sappho
from every marble cliff in Greece: Sappho in dry riverbeds ablaze
with oleander and wild pomegranate, Sappho in olive groves
and pine-shadowed
coves,
Sappho bathing secretly in the ancient calm
of a tide-less sea; on her head a garland of myrtle,
and in her hand a little musical instrument
of her
own invention.
