by Coleridge · Cluster: Appearance vs Reality · Beauty · Eyes and Sight
Abstract
A classicizing love-lyric in the voice of Alcaeus praising the blush, eyes and lip of his beloved Sappho as the fairest face on earth.
Connections
Archetypes: Lover Motifs: Eyes and Sight, White and Red Themes & Concepts: Romantic Love, Beauty Forms & Genres: Lyric Historical References: Classical Antiquity, Ancient Greece
Testo integrale / Full text
How sweet, when crimson colours dart
Across a breast of snow,
To see that you are in the heart
That beats and throbs below.
All Heaven is in a maiden’s blush, 5
In which the soul doth speak,
That it was you who sent the flush
Into the maiden’s cheek.
Large steadfast eyes! eyes gently rolled
In shades of changing blue, 10
How sweet are they, if they behold
No dearer sight than you.
And, can a lip more richly glow,
Or be more fair than this?
The world will surely answer, No! 15
I, SAPPHO, answer, Yes!
Then grant one smile, tho’ it should mean
A thing of doubtful birth;
That I may say these eyes have seen
The fairest face on earth! 20
1800.