Sappho Short Poems

Famous Short Sappho Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Sappho. A collection of the all-time best Sappho short poems

• Sappho Poems
• Sappho Best Poems

Without Warning  

Without warning 
as a whirlwind 
swoops on an oak 
Love shakes my heart

Please  

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 

Sappho  

 I sigh at day-dawn, and I sigh
When the dull day is passing by.

I sigh at evening, and again
I sigh when night brings sleep to men.

Oh! it were far better to die
Than thus forever mourn and sigh,
And in death's dreamless sleep to be
Unconscious that none weep for me;
Eased from my weight of heaviness,
Forgetful of forgetfulness,
Resting from care and pain and sorrow
Thro' the long night that knows no morrow;
Living unloved, to die unknown,
Unwept, untended, and alone.

To Andromeda  

That country girl has witched your wishes 
all dressed up in her country clothes
and she hasn't got the sense
to hitch her rags above her ankles. 

--Translated by Jim Powell 

Song Of One Of The Girls  

 Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.

I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.


Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.

In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.


I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.

But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.

If Death be Good  

 (Sappho LXXIV)
If death be good,
Why do the gods not die?
If life be ill,
Why do the gods still live?
If love be naught,
Why do the gods still love?
If love be all,
What should men do but love?

To S. M  

 If he should lie a-dying

I AM not willing you should go 
Into the earth, where Helen went; 
She is awake by now, I know.
 
Where Cleopatra's anklets rust 
You will not lie with my consent; 
And Sappho is a roving dust; 
Cressid could love again; Dido, 
Rotted in state, is restless still; 
You leave me much against my will.