LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,195)
  • Text Authors (19,677)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,115)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Sappho (flourished c610-c580 BCE)
Translation by Bliss Carman (1861 - 1929)

Soft was the wind in the beech‑trees
Language: English  after the Aeolic Greek 
Soft was the wind in the beech-trees;
Low was the surf on the shore;
In the blue dusk one planet
Like a great sea-pharos shone.

But nothing to me were the sea-sounds,
The wind and the yellow star,
When over my breast the banner
Of your golden hair was spread.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by Bliss Carman (1861 - 1929), no title, appears in Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics, no. 84 [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]
    • Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "Soft was the wind in the beech-trees" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2022-01-13
Line count: 8
Word count: 50

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris