Nothing New

Classic writing, modern delivery

Book I

• 1.Cyprus, Paphos, or Panormus
• 2.What shall we do, Cytherea?
• 3.Power and beauty and knowledge,—
• 4.O Pan of the evergreen forest,
• 5.O Aphrodite,
• 6.Peer of the gods he seems,
• 7.The Cyprian came to thy cradle,
• 8.Aphrodite of the foam,
• 9.Nay, but always and forever
• 10.Let there be garlands, Dica,
• 11.When the Cretan maidens
• 12.In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
• 13.Sleep thou in the bosom
• 14.Hesperus, bringing together
• 15.In the grey olive-grove a small brown bird
• 16.In the apple boughs the coolness
• 17.Pale rose leaves have fallen
• 18.The courtyard of her house is wide
• 19.There is a medlar-tree
• 20.I behold Arcturus going westward
• 21.Softly the first step of twilight
• 22.Once you lay upon my bosom,
• 23.I loved thee, Atthis, in the long ago,
• 24.I shall be ever maiden,
• 25.It was summer when I found you
• 26.I recall thy white gown, cinctured
• 27.Lover, art thou of a surety
• 28.With your head thrown backward
• 29.Ah, what am I but a torrent,
• 30.Love shakes my soul, like a mountain wind
• 31.Love, let the wind cry
• 32.Heart of mine, if all the altars
• 33.Never yet, love, in earth’s lifetime,
• 34.“Who was Atthis?” men shall ask,
• 35.When the great pink mallow
• 36.When I pass thy door at night
• 37.Well I found you in the twilit garden,
• 38.Will not men remember us
• 39.I grow weary of the foreign cities,
• 40.Ah, what detains thee, Phaon,
• 41.Phaon, O my lover,
• 42.O heart of insatiable longing,
• 43.Surely somehow, in some measure,
• 44.O but my delicate lover,
• 45.Softer than the hill-fog to the forest
• 46.I seek and desire,
• 47.Like torn sea-kelp in the drift
• 48.Fine woven purple linen
• 49.When I am home from travel,
• 50.When I behold the pharos shine
• 51.Is the day long,
• 52.Lo, on the distance a dark blue ravine,
• 53.Art thou the top-most apple
• 54.How soon will all my lovely days be over,
• 55.Soul of sorrow, why this weeping?
• 56.It never can be mine
• 57.Others shall behold the sun
• 58.Let thy strong spirit never fear,
• 59.Will none say of Sappho,
• 60.When I have departed,
• 61.There is no more to say now thou art still,
• 62.Play up, play up thy silver flute;
• 63.A beautiful child is mine,
• 64.Ah, but now henceforth
• 65.Softly the wind moves through the radiant morning,
• 66.What the west wind whispers
• 67.Indoors the fire is kindled;
• 68.You ask how love can keep the mortal soul
• 69.Like a tall forest were their spears,
• 70.My lover smiled, “O friend, ask not
• 71.Ye who have the stable world
• 72.I heard the gods reply:
• 73.The sun on the tide, the peach on the bough,
• 74.If death be good,
• 75.Tell me what this life means,
• 76.Ye have heard how Marsyas,
• 77.Hour by hour I sit,
• 78.Once in the shining street,
• 79.How strange is love, O my lover!
• 80.How to say I love you:
• 81.Hark, love, to the tambourines
• 82.Over the roofs the honey-coloured moon,
• 83.In the quiet garden world,
• 84.Soft was the wind in the beech-trees;
• 85.Have you heard the news of Sappho’s garden,
• 86.Love is so strong a thing,
• 87.Hadst thou, with all thy loveliness, been true,
• 88.As, on a morn, a traveller might emerge
• 89.Where shall I look for thee,
• 90.A sad, sad face, and saddest eyes that ever
• 91.Why have the gods in derision
• 92.Like a red lily in the meadow grasses,
• 93.When in the spring the swallows all return,
• 94.Cold is the wind where Daphne sleeps,
• 95.Hark, where Poseidon’s
• 96.Hark, my lover, it is spring!
• 97.When the early soft spring wind comes blowing
• 98.I am more tremulous than shaken reeds,
• 99.Over the wheat-field,
• 100.Once more the rain on the mountain,