oundary of the
senses, that accounts for Sappho's agonies of despair. In Sara
Teasdale's _Sappho_ she describes herself,

Who would run at dusk
Along the surges creeping up the shore
When tides come in to ease the hungry beach,
And running, running till the night was black,
Would fall forspent upon the chilly sand,
And quiver with the winds from off the sea.
Ah! quietly the shingle waits the tides
Whose waves are stinging kisses, but to me
Love brought no peace, nor darkness any rest.
[Footnote: In the end, Sara Teasdale does show her winning content,
in the love of her baby daughter, but it is significant that this
destroys her lyric gift. She assures Aphrodite,

If I sing no more
To thee, God's daughter, powerful as God,
It is that thou hast made my life too sweet
To hold the added sweetness of a song.
* * * * *
I taught the world thy music; now alone
I sing for her who falls asleep to hear.]

Swinburne characteristically shows her literally tearing the flesh in
her quest of the divinity that is reflected there. In _Anactoria_
she tells the object of her infatuation:

I would my love could kill thee: I am satiated
With seeing thee alive, and fain would have thee dead.
* * * * *
I would find grievous ways to have thee slain,
Intense device and superflux of pain.

And after detailing with gusto the bloody ingenuities of her plan of
torture, she states that her motive is,

To wring thy very spirit through the flesh.

The myth that Sappho's agony resulted from an offense done to Aphrodite,
is several times alluded to. In _Sappho and Phaon_ she asserts her
independence of Aphrodite's good will, and in revenge the goddess turns
Phaon's affection away from Sappho, back to Thalassa, the mother of his
children. Sappho's infatuation for Phaon, the slave, seems a cruel jest
of Aphrodite, who fills Sappho with a wholly blind and unreasoning
passion. In all three of Swinburne's Lesbian poems, Aphrodite's anger is
mentioned. This is the sole theme of _Sapphics_, in which poem the
goddess, displeased by Sappho's preferment of love poetry to the actual
delights of love, yet tried to win Sappho back to her:

Called to her, saying "Turn to me, O my Sappho,"
Yet she turned her face from the Loves, she saw not
Tears or laughter darken immortal eyelids....
Only saw the beautiful