Sappho Ii Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFCGHIJKLMNMOPLQ RSTUVWEXXYZA2QB2SVCC 2RWD2WLRE2ACA2JF2YCG 2H2I2J2K2ARL2TD2| Oh Litis little slave why will you sleep | A |
| These long Egyptian noons bend down your head | B |
| Bowed like the yarrow with a yellow bee | C |
| There lift your eyes no man has ever kindled | D |
| Dark eyes that wait like faggots for the fire | E |
| See how the temple's solid square of shade | F |
| Points north to Lesbos and the splendid sea | C |
| That you have never seen oh evening eyed | G |
| Yet have you never wondered what the Nile | H |
| Is seeking always restless and wild with spring | I |
| And no less in the winter seeking still | J |
| How shall I tell you Can you think of fields | K |
| Greater than Gods could till more blue than night | L |
| Sown over with the stars and delicate | M |
| With filmy nets of foam that come and go | N |
| It is more cruel and more compassionate | M |
| Than harried earth It takes with unconcern | O |
| And quick forgetting rapture of the rain | P |
| And agony of thunder the moon's white | L |
| Soft garmented virginity and then | Q |
| The insatiable ardor of the sun | R |
| And me it took But there is one more strong | S |
| Love that came laughing from the eider seas | T |
| The Cyprian the mother of the world | U |
| She gave me love who only asked for death | V |
| I who had seen much sorrow in men's eyes | W |
| And in my own too sorrowful a fire | E |
| I was a sister of the stars and yet | X |
| Shaken with pain sister of birds and yet | X |
| The wings that bore my soul were very tired | Y |
| I watched the careless spring too many times | Z |
| Light her green torches in a hungry wind | A2 |
| Too many times I watched them flare and then | Q |
| Fall to forsaken embers in the autumn | B2 |
| And I was sick of all things even song | S |
| In the dull autumn dawn I turned to death | V |
| Buried my living body in the sea | C |
| The strong cold sea that takes and does not give | C2 |
| But there is one more strong the Cyprian | R |
| Litis to wake from sleep and find your eyes | W |
| Met in their first fresh upward gaze by love | D2 |
| Filled with love's happy shame from other eyes | W |
| Dazzled with tenderness and drowned in light | L |
| As tho' you looked unthinking at the sun | R |
| Oh Litis that is joy But if you came | E2 |
| Not from the sunny shallow pool of sleep | A |
| But from the sea of death the strangling sea | C |
| Of night and nothingness and waked to find | A2 |
| Love looking down upon you glad and still | J |
| Strange and yet known forever that is peace | F2 |
| So did he lean above me Not a word | Y |
| He spoke I only heard the morning sea | C |
| Singing against his happy ship the keen | G2 |
| And straining joy of wind awakened sails | H2 |
| And songs of mariners and in myself | I2 |
| The precious pain of arms that held me fast | J2 |
| They warmed the cold sea out of all my blood | K2 |
| I slept feeling his eyes above my sleep | A |
| There on the ship with wines and olives laden | R |
| Led by the stars to far invisible ports | L2 |
| Egypt and islands of the inner seas | T |
| Love came to me and Cercolas was love | D2 |
Sara Teasdale
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