To Cleis

“I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower,

Cleis, the beloved.”

Sapphic fragment.

When the dusk was wet with dew,

Cleis, did the muses nine

Listen in a silent line

While your mother sang to you?

Did they weep or did they smile

When she crooned to still your cries,

She, a muse in human guise,

Who forsook her lyre awhile?

Did you feel her wild heart beat?

Did the warmth of all the sun

Thro’ your little body run

When she kissed your hands and feet?

Did your fingers, babywise,

Touch her face and touch her hair,

Did you think your mother fair,

Could you bear her burning eyes?

Are the songs that soothed your fears

Vanished like a vanished flame,

Save the line where shines your name

Starlike down the graying years?

Cleis speaks no word to me,

For the land where she has gone

Lieth mute at dusk and dawn

Like a windless tideless sea.