{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/pos/pos49.htm","path":"cla/pos/pos49.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/pos/pos49.htm","text":"The Poems of Sappho, by John Myers O'Hara, [1910]\nAs the moon in all her splendor\n Slowly rose above the forest,\n Silent stood the Cretan women\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Round the altar.\nGirdled close their clinging tunics,\n Made of some transparent fabric,\n Traced the every curve and lissome\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of their bodies.\nWith revering eyes uplifted\n To the round and rising planet,\n Soon its drifting beams of silver\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Lit their faces.\nSoft and clear its sphere effulgent,\n Full defined above the treetops,\n Steeped in pale unearthly glamor\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All the landscape.\nWhen the argent glimmer rested\n On the altar piled with garlands,\n And its glow unveiled the marble\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Aphrodite;\nLinking hands, the Cretan women\n Moving gracefully with metric\n Steps began to dance a measure\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To the Goddess.\nAll so light their feet unsandalled\n Pressed the velvet grass in treading,\n That they scarcely bruised its tender\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Blooming verdure.\nSlowly turning in a circle\n To the east, their voices chanted\n In a plaintive note the sacred\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ithyphallics;\nThen they paused, their steps retracing\n Toward the west, and answered strophe\n By antistrophe with choric\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tones accordant;\nWith the aftersong epodic,\n Standing all before the altar,\n Lo! the hymn in praise of Paphos\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Was completed.","title":"The Poems of Sappho: Erotika: Dithyrambs: The Cretan Dance","type":"page"}