A Dream of Sappho

by Ella Rhoads Higginson 

 

 

HE little hollows in the pavements shine
With the soft, hesitating April rain,
That sifts across the city, gray and fine,
And on the huddling, spent waves of the main,—
Where the wild, silver seabirds wheel and scream.
It is a day to die before the fire,
Turning the key on Thought and Care, and dream
Of dark-eyed Sappho and her passioned lyre;
Her sun-warmed courts columned above the sea;
Blue skies of Lesbos—ay, and of the kiss
Of the South wind among her bower’s leaves.
Who could regret the day’s monotony,
In the full rapture of a dream like this—
Set to the faltering music of the eaves!

 

(published in When the Birds Go North Again, 1898)

 

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ELLA RHOADS HIGGINSON (January 28, 1862?-December 27, 1940) was a prominent American author. She wrote award-winning fiction, poetry, and essays characteristically set in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. She was the author of two collections of short stories, six books of poetry, a novel, a travel book, well over one hundred short stories, over four hundred poems, and numerous newspaper essays. She was influential for the ways her writing drew international attention to the then little-known Pacific Northwest region of the United States.

 

Bio quoted from Dr. Laura Laffrado’s Western Washington University research page at http://faculty.wwu.edu/laffrado/research.shtml