by Sappho (flourished c610-c580 BCE)
Translation by Bliss Carman (1861 - 1929)
It never can be mine
Language: English after the Aeolic Greek
It never can be mine To sit in the door in the sun And watch the world go by, A pageant and a dream; For I was born for love, And fashioned for desire, Beauty, passion, and joy, And sorrow and unrest; And with all things of earth Eternally must go, Daring the perilous bourn Of joyance and of death, A strain of song by night, A shadow on the hill, A hint of odorous grass, A murmur of the sea.
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Confirmed with Bliss Carman, Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics, The Project Gutenberg eBook, 2004.
Text Authorship:
- by Bliss Carman (1861 - 1929), no title, appears in Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics, no. 56 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Aeolic Greek by Sappho (flourished c610-c580 BCE) [text unavailable]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Mary Elizabeth Turner Salter (1856 - 1938), "It can never be mine", published 1985 [ voice and piano ], from Lyrics from Sappho, no. 5, Huntsville, Tex. : Recital Publications [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2025-09-08
Line count: 16
Word count: 81