10 Best Famous Sapphic Stanza Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Sapphic Stanza poems. This is a select list of the best famous Sapphic Stanza poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Sapphic Stanza poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of sapphic stanza poems.

• All Famous Sapphic Stanza Poems

My Atthis, although our dear Anaktoria
lives in distant Sardis,
she thinks of us constantly, and

of the life we shared in days when for her
you were a splendid goddess,
and your singing gave her deep joy.
 
Now she shines among Lydian women as
when the red-fingered moon
rises after sunset, erasing

stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea 
and over densely flowered fields;

and lucent dew spreads on the earth to quicken
roses and fragile thyme
and the sweet-blooming honey-lotus.

Now while our darling wanders she thinks of
lovely Atthis's love,
and longing sinks deep in her breast.

She cries loudly for us to come!  We hear,
for the night's many tongues
carry her cry across the sea.

On the throne of many hues Immortal Aphrodite 
child of Zeus weaving wiles--I beg you
not to subdue my spirit Queen 
with pain or sorrow 

but come--if ever before 
having heard my voice from far away
you listened and leaving your father's 
golden home you came 

in your chariot yoked with swift lovely
sparrows bringing you over the dark earth
thick-feathered wings swirling down
from the sky through mid-air 

arriving quickly--you Blessed One 
with a smile on your unaging face
asking again what have I suffered
and why am I calling again 

and in my wild heart what did I most wish
to happen to me: "Again whom must I persuade
back into the harness of your love?
Sappho who wrongs you? 

For if she flees soon she'll pursue 
she doesn't accept gifts but she'll give 
if not now loving soon she'll love
even against her will." 

Come to me now again release me from
this pain everything my spirit longs 
to have fulfilled fulfill and you
be my ally 

--Translated by Diane Rayor 

Come back to me Gongyla here tonight 
You my rose with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired. 

Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess 
Whom I now beseech 

Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see. 

--Translated by Paul Roche 

 In my dream, Celebrity, four pianos
scored the room, and you -- on an antique sofa
near two dark-haired innocents -- asked that I play
something immortal.

Dust motes grayed the air, and a sage-green shadow
draped the walls in color like sifted powder.
I agreed, but wandered, untold, too many
keys to consider.

 "Thou shalt be--Nothing."--Omar Khayyam. 
"Tombless, with no remembrance."--W. Shakespeare. 

Dead shalt thou lie; and nought 
 Be told of thee or thought, 
For thou hast plucked not of the Muses' tree: 
 And even in Hades' halls 
 Amidst thy fellow-thralls 
No friendly shade thy shade shall company!