To a Youth Who Wooed a Woman Older than Himself

  by: Sappho (c. 610-570 B.C.)

    translated by Arthur S. Way


 

Friend, woo me not so earnestly.
   Vain is thy prayer.
Nay, if in truth thou lovest me.
    Hereafter spare
My wearied ears a suit denied.
Go, choose for thee a younger bride.
Not I will brook to live with thee.
An old wife to a young man tied,
Doomed as the years fleet by to see
A spouse who gazes hungry-eyed
On such as she can never be.
    The young and fair.
And waits to enshroud her clay with glee,
    And graveward bear.


   More poems by Sappho