Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough, 

Atop on the topmost twig, — which the pluckers forgot, somehow, — 

Forget it not, nay; but got it not, for none could get it till now. Sappho 'One Girl'

 

Linked arms, looking into the future, my daughters,

In your 'jamas, bought from Sunday markets,

Off the Thame Road, and your beautiful young faces.

This picture of a world I no longer have, imbued

With all the scattered sadnesses of time, still rhymes

in this creaking, over-flowing mind of mine.

 

Looking, and then truly seeing, you, as you were,

And never ever can be again, I am overwhelmed

With the sadness that once filled the heart of Sappho
As she saw the tides of the Aegean echo to this music of time.

This looking back leaves me bereft here,

Fixed betwixt sky and land, sea and soil,

on the saddest shores 

of moon and tide: echoing to the ever present presence

of regret.