Sappho

"One Girl"

I

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.

II

Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,

Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,

Until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground. 

(Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti) 

Sappho (c. 630- c. 570 BC) is one of the women writers evoked by A. Lowell in her poem "The Sisters"(1925).