Sappho – Charles-August Mengin
Oil on canvas, 1877

THE MUSES

Hither now, O Muses, leaving the golden
House of God unseen in the azure spaces,
Come and breathe on bosom and brow and kindle
Song like the sunglow;

Come and lift my shaken soul to the sacred
Shadow cast by Helicon’s rustling forests;
Sweep on wings of flame from the middle ether,
Seize and uplift me;

Thrill my heart that throbs with unwonted fervor,
Chasten mouth and throat with immortal kisses,
Till I yield on maddening heights the very
Breath of my body.

~ from The Poems of Sappho: An Interpretative Rendition into English, translated by John Myers O’Hara, 1870-1944.

More about her life and poetry : The Tenth Muse