Sappho

 
Gently, the ocean waves
sing their eternal dirge
and softly the humid spring night 
enfolds me. 
My soul searches for you.

Oh come, 
sweet flock of girls!
I want to drink of your beauty.
Give your wild hair to the wind,
and drop your raiments silently.

My pale child,
give me your mouth, 
and feed my own mad fires. 
How cool your red lips are. 
You havn't learned how love feels yet.

And you, 
with your thick mane of red-gold curls
flowing almost to your heels,
like waves of flame,
show me the fires that glitter and flicker
from your eyes. You must not leave me,
for your are as beautiful as the glowing sun.

And you two
shy and slender sisters
as pale as moonlight,
with your quiet heartache
and your silent pangs of love.

With your limbs' marble splendour
shining white as the waves' glimmering foam,
and your hair in the night,
you are more silent
than a dream.

Oh bouquet of blossoms! 
Oh, flock of girls!
I want to drink of your beauty.
Give your wild hair to the wind,
and drop your raiments silently.



Foiled Sleep

Ah me! I cannot
sleep at night;
And when I shut my eyes, forsooth,
I cannot banish from my sight
The vision of her slender youth.

She stands before
me lover-wise,
Her naked beauty fair and slim,
She smiles upon me, and her eyes
With over fierce desire grow dim.

Slowly she leans
to me. I meet
The passion of her gaze anew,
And then her laughter, clear and sweet,
Thrills all the hollow silence through.

O, siren, with
the mocking tongue!
O beauty, lily-sweet and white!
I see her, slim and fair and young.
And ah! I cannot sleep tonight





Words of old age

I cannot sleep
at night.
When my tired eyes
have barely closed, 
her youth appears to me in dreams.

A naked girl,
fair and slim,
wild lust bright in her eyes:
Her body blossoms like springtime,
her breasts bud like flowers.

She leans over me 
with a high laugh,
I hear her laughter echo; 
so sweet and so full of scorn,
thrilling all the hollow silence.

Oh, how wildly
she mocks me!
Her body blossoms so like springtime,
a young, young, young girl.
I cannot sleep at night, I cannot.

'Marie Madeleine', Baronness von Puttkamer
(April 4, 1881 - September 27, 1944)

From 'Auf Kypros' (On Cyprus).
First published (1900) by Berlin Charlottenburg, when Marie Madeleine was 20.
These poems reflect the lesbian attraction of a girl in her puberty.
The beautiful Baronness was charged with being lewd and shameless.