“Sweet is the god but still I am
in agony and far from my strength.”
Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet
The Willis Barnstone translations, Dream
“O dream on your black wings
you come when I am sleeping.
Sweet is the god but still I am
in agony and far from my strength.
for I had hope (none now) to share
something of the blessed gods,
nor was I so foolish
as to scorn pleasant toys.
Now may I have
all these things.”
— Sappho
Fragment 63 Voigt
The Willis Barnstone translations, Dream
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you come when I am sleeping.
Sweet is the god but still I am
in agony and far from m…" by Sappho?
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ancient Greek lyric poet -630–-570 BCRelated quotes
“O dream on your black wings
you come when I am sleeping.”
Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet
The Willis Barnstone translations, Dream
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope… I have loved none but you.”
Jane Austen book Persuasion
Variant: You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.
Source: Persuasion
Miguel Pro (1891–1927) Mexican Jesuit priest and martyr
Source: Blessed Miguel Pro Juarez https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/blessed-miguel-pro-juarez-397 (November 23, 1927)
Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
Context: I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist, Dr. Isaac Asimov in that essentially functionless capacity. At an A. H. A. memorial service for my predecessor I said, "Isaac is up in Heaven now." That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles. Mirth! Several minutes had to pass before something resembling solemnity could be restored.
I made that joke, of course, before my first near-death experience — the accidental one.
So when my own time comes to join the choir invisible or whatever, God forbid, I hope someone will say, "He's up in Heaven now." Who really knows? I could have dreamed all this.
My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays
Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded (1931)