Long sappho Poems
Long sappho Poems. Below are the most popular long sappho by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long sappho poems by poem length and keyword.
Sappho Translations I
Sappho, fragment 132 (Lobel-Page 132)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
I have a delightful daughter
fairer than the fairest flowers, Cleis,
whom I cherish more than all Lydia and lovely Lesbos.
2.
I have a lovely daughter
with a face like the fairest flowers,
my beloved Cleis …
It bears noting that Sappho mentions her daughter and brothers, but not her husband. We do not know if this means she was unmarried, because so many of her verses have been lost.
Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131)
loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch
1.
You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andromeda ...
2.
Attis, you forsake me
and flit off to Andromeda ...
Sappho, fragment 140 (Lobel-Page 140)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
He is dying, Cytherea, the delicate Adonis.
What shall we lovers do?
Rip off your clothes, bare your breasts and abuse them!
Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?
Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
May the gods prolong the night
—yes, let it last forever!—
as long as you sleep in my sight.
... a sweet-voiced maiden ...
—Sappho, fragment 153, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I have the most childlike heart ...
—Sappho, fragment 120, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s ecstatic brilliance.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s splendor.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You anointed yourself
with most exquisite perfume.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Awed by the moon’s splendor,
stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.
—Sappho, fragment 34, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Keywords/Tags: Sappho, Lesbos, Greek, translation, epigram, epigrams, love, sex, desire, passion, lust, lesbian, LGBTQ
She who perceived what dusky tones to lyric
visions and visitations drifting sea beats
her obsidian deep in bowels of rock
mermen watching neat
River spirit maidens ask freedom's turquoise
within midnight's black grimace God gleams white light
against rainfall sky her fair deploy was
Love's only employ
Sappho's obsidian dust incubating
on Earth ~ Aphrodite's coal its sound inert
no beetles can roam its aura's fast converts
implacable hurts —
Muse awaited no crown pharoah’s lips fleshy
in cosmic time concept will bell excell
grecian pudding spiced hot on cypress table
obsidian spell
Soft dew drops upon unbound black hair curling
sprinkling coloured leaves of body's flesh tree
jet night pale blossoms wrapping barefeet pitch
woman cracked stone itch …
Amidst obsidian leaking indigo
Sappho's loamy dream creating blackout moon
sleepy swoons across mossy floor encircle
legs entwine quirkle —
Hierophants composed illusion stories
she did not believe, dark related truth’s scout
as sure as fire heats every sunset closing
Sappho’s stone reigns clout ~
I like immigrants, immigration. Legal immigration,
Jane passionately corrects. Actually my goal is a borderless world.
Gathering the neighborhood like family.
The men discuss sterilizing welfare mothers. I say You're working
around the edges,
humanity has exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet,
even those with jobs. And spouses. And houses.
Yet it's an idyll of an early summer evening, new cut grass,
two baseball teams of children playing in it. Safe from Pakistan.
News photos of Muslim refugees, women in blue robes, biblically
carrying children away from holocaust. The fundamentalist army
not far behind, beheading sinners, sure in its righteousness
as the Holy Roman Empire.
Somehow Joel Osteen the evangelist comes up
while talking about how the Catholic Church is irrelevant in North
America,
even Latin America and Africa are going evangelical.
Izzi likes Osteen, awesome extemporaneous speaker, no teleprompter,
up from bootstraps message. My wife says he's probably Jewish.
Fortunately no one claims the Holocaust never happened or slavery was
voluntary.
What is the carrying capacity of the planet?
In China is it each couple or each adult that gets one offspring?
As life expectancy and standards rise,
family size diminishes. We draw together into greener, tighter cities.
The children of three monotheistic religions, atheists and agnostics
play in city streets, work farm fields, explore forests, deserts, grasslands,
space.
Two ancient female poets: Enheduanna and Sappho
are a revelation. The clarity of their complaints:
lost lover, lost city.
Sappho Translations VIII by Michael R. Burch
Sappho, fragment 68
translation by Michael R. Burch
That was then, this is now!
In those days my maidenhead was in full bloom,
then you …
Sappho, fragment 135
translation by Michael R. Burch
Golden Persuasion, Aphrodite's daughter,
how you deceive mortals!
Sappho, fragment 88
translation by Michael R. Burch
Why, Procne,
delicate swallow, daughter of Pandion,
why do you weary me with tales of woe?
Sappho, fragment 15
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Cypris, may she find you a harsh mistress,
Doricha, the sl-t!
Put an end to her bragging,
nor let her boast that she fooled him twice,
my brother's embezzler!
Sappho, fragment 7
translation by Michael R. Burch
Doricha commands arrogantly,
like young men.
Sappho, fragment 148
translation by Michael R. Burch
A vagabond friendship,
a public blessing …
repent Rhodopis!
Sappho, fragment 138
translation by Michael R. Burch
The beautiful courtesan Rhodopis,
lies here entombed, more fair
than when she walked with white lilies
plaited in her dark hair,
but now she's as withered as they:
whose dust is more gray?
Sappho, fragment 5
translation by Michael R. Burch
Revered Nereids, divine sea-daughters, please grant that my brother may return unharmed,
his heart's desires all fulfilled,
and may he show his sister more honor than in his indifferent past …
But you, O august Kypris, please keep him from unbearable dooms!
Sappho, fragment 95
translation by Michael R. Burch
Lord Hermes, you guide spirits to their final destination.
Now guide me, for I am despondent and wish only to die,
to see the lotus-lined shores of Acheron.
Sappho, fragment 150
translation by Michael R. Burch
1.
Cleis, daughter, don't cry!
Mourning is unbecoming a poet's household.
2.
For those who serve the Muses,
mourning is unbecoming.
Sappho, fragment 56
translation by Michael R. Burch
Erinna, will any woman
born under the sun
ever match your art?
Sappho, fragment 135
translation by Michael R. Burch
Erinna, why does darkwinged Procne, King Pandion's daughter, beckon?
Keywords/Tags: Erinna, Procne, brother, sister, daughter,
(Hardly anything is known about Sappho, but no-one seriously
doubts her greatness as a poet. She lived on the Greek island
of Lesbos (hence “Lesbian”) in the seventh century BC. All that
has survived of her work is a scattering of scraps, but even this
meagre evidence establishes her as one of the foremost poets
of all time.)
V.
The sunlight is old now,
and losing its fine force.
Beneath the turgid moon, then,
let young women take their places.
As the silent globe swells up,
her sisters, the silver stars,
show their little faces.
Slow, slow, naked feet
together pound the earth.
Our circle is a living altar,
and grass fronds kiss our calves.
Just for one night the moon is full,
glorious in her loveliness,
dancing her own white path
on the sparkling dark sea.
Dance together
under the moon,
Aphrodite's daughters!
Dance with us,
goddess of love,
with the subtly shining hair.
You are mine, fair Atthis,
and will never be this fair again.
When drum and tambourine
have captured us and wiped us clean
of self, we will make love.
In each other's arms,
breathing, sleeping,
with silent moon gliding ...
why, then, am I weeping?
{Poet’s Note : First Poem of Set of 5 SPOKEN WORD poems written in SAPPHIC STANZAS }
____________________
{Poet’s Note : Set of 5 SPOKEN WORD poems written in SAPPHIC VERSE }
____________________
Not to analyse when sweetly breathing sound
always Spirit first from pearl reflections nurse
action becoming transmutation spreading
healthy is happy heart
Through precision we will finally be free
overcoming obstacles of any spree
emerging Spirit onward and upward
power by degree
Perfect is this on way despite obstacles
Love looking for more fondness adoring
single purpose in Spirit length of time soaring
concentrate all time
Definite purpose or action, object defined
receive intelligence touching Transmitter
possibilities of attention startling
credible it is
Premise of Spirit is Love united, see
buy not into anything that is not Love
humans believe what they want to believe
sway in own freedom
Captivating is absorption distinguish
accomplishment can be acquired, Woman
in Spirit we are conceived, believe bliss, Sisters
_____Bliss ! we shall return ~ where to ?____!
H O M E
home
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aphrodite, immortal, enthroned in wonder,
Sky-daughter, webstress of love schemes, I entreat you
not to break my spirit with pangs of anguish,
Queen, Lady, Mother,
but now come to me, if in the past you ever
also heeded me when I cried from afar, and,
leaving behind the golden house of your father
Zeus, you descended
borne in a chariot yoked to a flock of lovely
sparrows flying fast over earth’s black richness,
thickly fluttering wings leading you a passage
through bright mid-heaven,
soon arriving, and you, O supreme in blessing,
eternity’s smile gleaming from your expression,
asked me now this time what again I suffered,
what did I pray for,
what beyond all else I would want to happen
with all my love-maddened heart: “Who now needs persuasion
to be led back to your affection? Who is it,
Sappho, who hurts you?
Though she now may run, she will soon pursue you;
now she may spurn gifts, but she soon will give them;
now she feels no love, but she soon will feel it,
even unwilling.”
Come to me this time again: act as my deliveress
from this mastering pain, and, as the fulfiller
of everything that my passion hopes for, take your
stand as my ally.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
— translated from the Greek by Jon Corelis
The YouTube video is my musical setting of this poem performed by Beth Ratay.
These are nature poems about unusual plants like the moonflower and agave.
Moonflower
by Michael R. Burch
after Robert Hayden
Marveling,
we at last beheld the achieved flower—
both awed and repelled by its alienness,
its moonlit petals,
its cloying fragrance,
its transcendence,
its shimmering and wavering intimations of mortality ...
To Flower
by Michael R. Burch
We are not long for this earth, I know—
you and I, all our petals incurled,
till a night of pale brilliance, moonflower aglow.
Is there love anywhere in this strange world?
The agave knows best when it’s time to die
and rages to life with such rapturous leaves
her name means Illustrious. Each hour more high,
she claws toward heaven, for, if she believes
in love at all, she has left it behind
to flower, to flower. When darkness falls
she wilts down to meet it, where something crawls:
beheaded, bewildered. And since love is blind,
she never adored it, nor watches it go.
Can we be as she is, moonflower aglow?
When Pentheus [“grief’] went into the mountains in the garb of the bacchae, his mother [Agave] and the other maenads, possessed by Dionysus, tore him apart (Euripides, Bacchae; Apollodorus 3.5.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511-733; Hyginus, Fabulae 184). The agave dies as soon as it blooms; the moonflower, or night-blooming cereus, is a desert plant of similar fate.
Our English Rose
by Michael R. Burch
for my mother Christine Ena Burch
The rose is?
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.
This is my translation/interpretation of a Sappho epigram.
Keywords/Tags: nature, moonflower, agave, flower, petals, rose, earth, beauty, beautiful, night, mortality
Heir on Fire
by Michael R. Burch
I wanted to be Shelley’s heir,
Just fourteen years old, and consumed by desire.
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?
I went to work—pale, laden with care:
why wouldn’t the words do as I aspired,
when I wanted to Keats’s heir?
My verse seemed neither here nor there.
How the hell did Sappho tune her lyre?
And why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?
The journals laughed at my childish fare.
Had I bitten off more than eagles dare
when I wanted to be Byron’s heir?
My words lacked Rimbaud’s savoir faire.
My prospects were looking quite dire!
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?
At fifteen I committed my poems to the fire,
calling each goddess a liar.
I just wanted to be Shakespeare’s heir.
Why wouldn’t my Muse play fair?
Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch, age 25
Frail bit of elfin magic
with eyes of brightest blue,
sleep now lines your lashes,
the sandman beckons you …
please don't fight—
it's all right.
My newborn son, cease sighing,
softly, slowly close your eyes,
purse your tiny lips
and kiss the crisp, cool night
a warm goodbye.
Fierce yet gentle fragment,
the better part of me,
why don't you dream a dream
deep as eternity,
until sunrise?
Frail bit of elfin magic
with eyes of brightest blue,
sleep now lines your lashes,
the sandman beckons you …
please don't fight —
it's all right.
My Doctir’s Excus
by Michael R. Burch, age 8
I can eggsplain why Im sick.
Sick as a brick
and my stule is thick.
I came to school
and I caught it from Rick.
Now I’m sick as a brick
and my stule is thick.
I cant do my homework
becus Im sick.
I cant take tests
becus Im a mess.
Blame Rick, the prick!
—signed, my doctir Ann Onimus
PS, Thurd grade is hard enuff on kids nervs and bad graids make my simptoms worse! Liten up, doctir’s orders!
Keywords/Tags: Heir, fire, Muse, Shelley, Keats, Sappho, Byron, Rimbaud, Shakespeare, student, sick, school, homework, desire, work, words, verse, poems
Sappho fragment #2
translation by Michael R. Burch
How can I compete with that damned man
who fancies himself one of the gods,
impressing you with his "eloquence" ...
when just the thought of sitting in your radiant presence,
of hearing your lovely voice and lively laughter,
sets my heart hammering at my breast?
Hell, when I catch just a quick glimpse of you,
I'm left speechless, tongue-tied,
and immediately a blush like a delicate flame reddens my skin.
Then my vision dims with tears,
my ears ring,
I sweat profusely,
and every muscle in my body trembles.
When the blood finally settles,
I grow paler than summer grass,
till in my exhausted madness,
I'm as limp as the dead.
And yet I must risk all, being bereft without you ...
Sappho of Lesbos was so highly regarded by her peers that she was called The Tenth Muse. That was high praise indeed, because the other nine Muses were goddesses! Sappho has given us our terms "sapphic" and "lesbian." And she wrote the first "make love, not war" poem more than 2,500 years ago! She was ahead of her time, and probably ours as well. Keywords/Tags: Sappho of Lesbos, Sapphic, Greece, Greek, translation, woman, women, girl, girls, girlfriends, love, lovers, lesbian, homosexual, passion, desire, longing, lust, sex, sexy, sensual, sensuous, relationship
SAPPHO'S POEMS FOR ATTIS AND ANACTORIA
Most of Sappho's poems are fragments but the first poem below, variously titled "The Anactoria Poem, " "Helen's Eidolon" and "Some People Say" is largely intact. Was Sappho the author of the world's first 'make love, not war' poem?
Some People Say
Sappho, fragment 16 (Lobel-Page 16 / Voigt 16)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Warriors on rearing chargers,
columns of infantry,
fleets of warships:
some call these the dark earth's redeeming visions.
But I say—
the one I desire.
Nor am I unique,
since she who so vastly surpassed all mortals in beauty
—Helen—
seduced by Aphrodite, led astray by desire,
departed for distant Troy,
abandoned her celebrated husband,
turned her back on her parents and child!
Her story reminds me of Anactoria,
who has also departed,
and whose lively dancing and lovely face
I would rather see than all the horsemen and war-chariots of the Lydians,
or their columns of infantry parading in flashing armor.