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The Poems of Sappho, by John Myers O'Hara, [1910], at sacred-texts.com


p. 78

ANAGORA

Anagora, fairest
Spoil of fateful battle,
Babylonian temples
Knew thy luring song.

Wrested from barbaric
Captors for thy beauty,
Thou wert made a priestess
At Mylitta's shrine.

Once these flexile fingers
Clasped in mine so closely,
Neath the temple's arches
Thrummed the tabor soft.

Thou hast taught me secrets
Of the cryptic chambers,
How the zonahs worship
In the burning East;

Raptures that my wildest
Dreaming never pictured,
Arts of love that charmed me,
Subtle, new and strange.

Hearken to my earnest
Prayer, O Aphrodite!
May the night be doubled
Now for our delight.


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