Rushing war-hosts, horsemen or foot or galleys — <br />These doth one call, those doth another, fairest <br />Sights on earth: I say that my love of all is <br />Sweetest and rarest. <br />Hear the proof, which lightly, I wot, convinces: — <br />'Mid the comely, Helen would fain discover <br />One without peer, and of the goodly princes <br />Chose for her lover <br />Him who brought the glory of Troy to ruin! <br />Reckless all of parent and child, she lavished <br />On the alien love for her own undoing; <br />Troyward was ravished. <br />Anactoria — she who contemns the blessing <br />Near at hand, is like to a reed wind-shaken. <br />Such are you! — love held in secure possessing <br />You have forsaken. <br />Her whose footfall's music myself had rather <br />Hear, and see her face in its beauty beaming. <br />Than to gaze where horsemen and footmen gather <br />Panoply-gleaming. <br />What is best is set above man's attaining; <br />Yet, if Fortune smiled on us once, 'tis better <br />To recall with prayer and with upward-straining <br />Than to forget her.<br /><br />Sappho<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-anactoria-who-has-forsaken-a-once-loved-girlfriend-of-sappho/
