One Girl

by Sappho

                                         I.
Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
A-top on the topmost twig, which the pluckers forgot, somehow,—
Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now.
                                         II.
Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found.
Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,
Until the purple blossom is trodden into the ground.

translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Sappho was an ancient Greek lyric poet believed to have been born around 615 b.c. With the exception of one poem, all that remains of her writing is in fragments, and little is known about her life. Her work is remembered especially for its homo-eroticism, such that the term sapphic derives from her name, and the term lesbian originates from her home island of Lesbos.

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, born on May 12, 1828 in London, was an English poet, translator, and artist. He was the author of Poems (Roberts Brothers, 1870) and Ballads and Sonnets (F. S. Ellis, 1881) as well as the illustrator of Goblin Market and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1862) by his sister, Christina Rossetti. He died on April 9, 1882.

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What becomes of one’s life’s work?  What does the effort, the discipline and resolve to maintain focus amount to?  Who can say?  Will anything survive the abrasion of time, the friction consequent to the ceaseless motion of everything?

I have thought that if anything that I have done or have written survives one generation into the future, I will have been fortunate indeed!

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