Page:The Poems of Sappho (1924).djvu/77

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Down courses in streams the sweat of emotion,

A dread trembling o’erwhelms me, paler am I

Than dried grass in autumn, and in my madness

Dead I seem almost.

Another translation is that of John Herman Merivale, 1833.

Blest as the immortal gods is he,

The youth whose eyes may look on thee,

Whose ears thy tongue’s sweet melody

May still devour.

Thou smilest too?—sweet smile whose charm

Has struck my soul with wild alarm,

And when I see thee bids disarm

Each vital power.

Speechless I gaze; the flame within

Runs swift o’er all my quivering skin,

My eyeballs swim; with dizzy din

My brain reels round

And cold drops fall; and tremblings frail

Seize every limb; and grassy pale

I grow; and then together fail

Both sight and sound.