These are my drawings and paintings inspired by the poetry and life of the poet Sappho in the ancient Greece, isle of Lesbos

I have had not one word from her

Frankly I wish I were dead.
When she left, she wept

a great deal; she said to
me, ``This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly.''

I said, ``Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love

``If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared

``all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck

``myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them

``while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song...''

This is my song of maidens dear to me.
Eranna, a slight girl I counted thee,
When first I looked upon thy form and face,
Slim as a reed, and all devoid of grace.
But stately stature, grace and beauty came
Unto thee with the years — O, dost not shame
For this, Eranna, that thy pride hath grown
Therewith? Alas for thee ! I have not known
One beauty ever of more scornful mien,
As though thou wert of all earth's daughters queen!
Mnasidica is comelier, perchance,
Than my Gyrinna — ah, but sweetly rings
Gyrinna's matchless voice ! In rapture-trance
I listen, listen, while Gyrinna sings.
Hero of Gyara is fleet of foot
As fawns, and as light-footed in the dance,
The dance taught by the measures of my lute.
Ever-impassioned Gorgo! — is it strange
That I grow weary of the change on change
Of thine adored ones? — of thy rhapsodies
O'er each new girlfriend, while the old love dies?
Joy to thee, daughter of a princely race,
For thy last dear one! Lie in her embrace —
Till shines a new star on thy raptured eyes!
Fonder of maids thou art, I trow, than she.
The ghost who nightly steal young girls, to be
In Hades of her woeful company.
This is my fair girl-garden: sweet they grow —
Rose, violet, asphodel and lily's snow;
And which the sweetest is, I do not know;
For rosy arms and starry eyes are there.
Honey-sweet voices and cheeks passing fair.
And these shall men, I ween, remember long;
For these shall bloom for ever in my song. 

If Zeus1 chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,

He would call to the rose and would royally crown it,

For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,

Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it.

For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers,

Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,--

Is the lightning of beauty, that strikes through the bowers

On pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware.

Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose, lifts the cup

To the red lips of Cypris10 invoked for a guest!

Ho, the rose, having curled its sweet leaves for the world,

Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,

As they laugh to the Wind as it laughs from the west.

Though in Sardis now,
she things of us constantly

and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave her deep joy.

Now she shines among Lydian women like 
the rose-fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all

stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields

lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus.

Often while she wanders she remem-
bers you, gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart

for us to come.

Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight,
You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.

Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess,
Whom I now beseech

Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.

The moon has set 

And the Pleiades; 

It is midnight, 

The time is going by, 

 And I sleep alone.