Fragment 33 (Voigt 49)
33 · Voigt 49I loved thee once, Atthis, long ago.
Ηράμαν μὲν εγω σέθεν, Ἄτθι, πάλαι πότα.
I loved thee,—hark, one tenderer note than all—
Atthis, of old time, once—one low long fall,
Sighing—one long low lovely loveless call,
Dying—one pause in song so flamelike fast—
Atthis, long since in old time overpast—
One soft first pause and last.
One,—then the old rage of rapture’s fieriest rain
Storms all the music-maddened night again.
— Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides, p. 57.
Quoted by Hephaestion, about 150 A.D., as an example of metre. The verse stood at the beginning of the first ode of the second book of Sappho’s poems, which Hephaestion says was composed entirely of odes in this metre: thus,
⏓⏓–⏑⏑–⏑⏑–⏑⏑–⏑⏒·