At last Bartja, taking both Sappho's hands in his own, looked long and
silently into her face, as if to stamp her likeness for ever on his
memory. When he spoke at last, she cast down her eyes, for he said: "In
my dreams, Sappho, you have always been the most lovely creature that
Auramazda ever created, but now I see you again, you are more lovely
even than my dreams."

And when a bright, happy glance from her had thanked him for these
words, he drew her closer to him, asking: "Did you often think of me?"

"I thought only of you."

"And did you hope to see me soon?"

"Yes; hour after hour I thought, 'now he must be coming.' Sometimes I
went into the garden in the morning and looked towards your home in the
East, and a bird flew towards me from thence and I felt a twitching in
my right eyelid; or when I was putting my box to rights and found the
laurel crown which I put by as a remembrance, because you looked so well
in it,--Melitta says such wreaths are good for keeping true love--then
I used to clap my hands with joy and think, 'to-day he must come;' and
I would run down to the Nile and wave my handkerchief to every passing
boat, for every boat I thought must be bringing you to me."

[A bird flying from the right side, and a twitching of the right eye
were considered fortunate omens. Theokrirus, III. 37]

"But you did not come, and then I went sadly home, and would sit down by
the fire on the hearth in the women's room, and sing, and gaze into the
fire till grandmother would wake me out of my dream by saying: 'Listen
to me, girl; whoever dreams by daylight is in danger of lying awake at
night, and getting up in the morning with a sad heart, a tired brain and
weary limbs. The day was not given us for sleep, and we must live in
it with open eyes, that not a single hour may be idly spent. The past
belongs to the dead; only fools count upon the future; but wise men
hold fast by the ever young present; by work they foster all the various
gifts which Zeus, Apollo, Pallas, Cypris lend; by work they raise,
and perfect and ennoble them, until their feelings, actions, words and
thoughts become harmonious like a well-tuned lute. You cannot serve the
man to whom you have given your whole heart,--to whom in your great
love you look up as so much higher than yourself--you cannot prove the
steadfastness and faithfulness of that love better, than by raising
and improving your mind to the utmost of your power. Every good and