Florence Earle Coates

Sappho

As a wan weaver in an attic dim,
⁠     Hopeless yet patient, so he may be fed
⁠     With scanty store of sorrow-seasoned bread,
⁠     Heareth a blithe bird carol over him,
And sees no longer walls and rafters grim,
⁠     But rural lanes where little feet are led
     ⁠Through springing flowers, fields with clover spread,
⁠     Clouds, swan-like, that o'er depths of azure swim,—
So, when upon our earth-dulled ear new breaks
     ⁠Some fragment, Sappho, of thy skyey song,
     A noble wonder in our souls awakes;
The deathless Beautiful draws strangely nigh,
⁠     And we look up, and marvel how so long
     ⁠We were content to drudge for sordid joys that die.