The Complete Works of Sappho

by Sappho

When anger stirs the breast, stop your tongue from barking foolishly.

I desire and I seek.

I believe men will remember us in the future.

To me you seemed a small and ungainly child.

And murky-eyed Sleep, the child of Night.

Forever you shall lie dead nor will there be any remembrance of you then, as you have none of Pieria’s; instead you shall wander unknown in the house of Hades, mingling with the shadowy dead.

You sleep on the breast of your lover.

On the hills the shepherds trample the flower underfoot and it lies on the group, darkening in decay.