THE POETRY OF SAPPHO.--If all the poets and all the lovers of poetry should
be asked to name the most precious of the priceless things which time has
wrung in tribute from the triumphs of human genius, the answer which would
rush to every tongue would be "The Lost Poems of Sappho." These we know to
have been jewels of a radiance so imperishable that the broken gleams of
them still dazzle men's eyes, whether shining from the two small brilliants
and the handful of star-dust which alone remain to us, or reflected merely
from the adoration of those poets of old time who were so fortunate as to
witness their full glory.

For about two thousand five hundred years Sappho has held her place as not
only the supreme poet of her sex, but the chief lyrist of all lyrists.
Every one who reads acknowledges her fame, concedes her supremacy; but to
all except poets and Hellenists her name is a vague and uncomprehended
splendour, rising secure above a persistent mist of misconception. In spite
of all that is in these days being written about Sappho, it is perhaps not
out of place now to inquire, in a few words, into the substance of this
supremacy which towers so unassailably secure from what appear to be such
shadowy foundations.

First, we have the witness of her contemporaries. Sappho was at the height
of her career about six centuries before Christ, at a period when lyric
poetry was peculiarly esteemed and cultivated at the centres of Greek life.
Among the _Molic_ peoples of the Isles, in particular, it had been carried
to a high pitch of perfection, and its forms had become the subject of
assiduous study. Its technique was exact, complex, extremely elaborate,
minutely regulated; yet the essential fires of sincerity, spontaneity,
imagination and passion were flaming with undiminished heat behind the
fixed forms and restricted measures. The very metropolis of this lyric
realm was Mitylene of Lesbos, where, amid the myrtle groves and temples,