SAY, lovely Youth, that dost my heart command, | |
| Can Phaon’s eyes forget his Sappho’s hand? | |
| Must then her name the wretched writer prove, | |
| To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love? | |
| Ask not the cause that I new numbers choose, | 5 |
| The lute neglected and the lyric Muse; | |
| Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow, | |
| And tuned my heart to elegies of woe. | |
| I burn, I burn, as when thro’ ripen’d corn | |
| By driving winds the spreading flames are borne! | 10 |
| Phaon to Ætna’s scorching fields retires, | |
| While I consume with more than Ætna’s fires! | |
| No more my soul a charm in music finds; | |
| Music has charms alone for peaceful minds. | |
| Soft scenes of solitude no more can please; | 15 |
| Love enters there, and I ’m my own disease. | |
| No more the Lesbian dames my passion move, | |
| Once the dear objects of my guilty love; | |
| All other loves are lost in only thine, | |
| O youth, ungrateful to a flame like mine! | 20 |
| Whom would not all those blooming charms surprise, | |
| Those heav’nly looks, and dear deluding eyes? | |
| The harp and bow would you like Phœbus bear, | |
| A brighter Phœbus Phaon might appear; | |
| Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair, | 25 |
| Not Bacchus’ self with Phaon could compare: | |
| Yet Phœbus lov’d, and Bacchus felt the flame, | |
| One Daphne warm’d, and one the Cretan dame; | |
| Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me, | |
| Than ev’n those Gods, contend in charms with thee. | 30 |
| The Muses teach me all their softest lays, | |
| And the wide world resounds with Sappho’s praise. | |
| Tho’ Great Alcæus more sublimely sings, | |
| And strikes with bolder rage the sounding strings, | |
| No less renown attends the moving lyre, | 35 |
| Which Venus tunes, and all her loves inspire; | |
| To me what Nature has in charms denied, | |
| Is well by Wit’s more lasting flames supplied. | |
| Tho’ short my stature, yet my name extends | |
| To Heav’n itself, and earth’s remotest ends. | 40 |
| Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame | |
| Inspired young Perseus with a gen’rous flame; | |
| Turtles and doves of diff’rent hues unite, | |
| And glossy jet is pair’d with shining white. | |
| If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign, | 45 |
| But such as merit, such as equal thine, | |
| By none, alas! by none thou canst employ, | |
| Phaon alone by Phaon must be lov’d! | |
| Yet once thy Sappho could thy cares employ, | |
| Once in her arms you centred all your joy: | 50 |
| No time the dear remembrance can remove, | |
| For oh! how vast a memory has Love! | |
| My music, then, you could for ever hear, | |
| And all my words were music to your ear. | |
| You stopp’d with kisses my enchanting tongue, | 55 |
| And found my kisses sweeter than my song. | |
| In all I pleas’d, but most in what was best; | |
| And the last joy was dearer than the rest. | |
| Then with each word, each glance, each motion fired, | |
| You still enjoy’d, and yet you still desired, | 60 |
| Till, all dissolving, in the trance we lay, | |
| And in tumultuous raptures died away. | |
| The fair Sicilians now thy soul inflame; | |
| Why was I born, ye Gods, a Lesbian dame? | |
| But ah, beware, Sicilian nymphs! nor boast | 65 |
| That wand’ring heart which I so lately lost; | |
| Nor be with all those tempting words abused, | |
| Those tempting words were all to Sappho used. | |
| And you that rule Sicilia’s happy plains, | |
| Have pity, Venus, on your poet’s pains! | 70 |
| Shall fortune still in one sad tenor run, | |
| And still increase the woes so soon begun? | |
| Inured to sorrow from my tender years, | |
| My parents’ ashes drank my early tears: | |
| My brother next, neglecting wealth and fame, | 75 |
| Ignobly burn’d in a destructive flame: | |
| An infant daughter late my griefs increas’d, | |
| And all a mother’s cares distract my breast. | |
| Alas! what more could Fate itself impose, | |
| But thee, the last, and greatest of my woes? | 80 |
| No more my robes in waving purple flow, | |
| Nor on my hand the sparkling diamonds glow; | |
| No more my locks in ringlets curl’d diffuse | |
| The costly sweetness of Arabian dews, | |
| Nor braids of gold the varied tresses bind, | 85 |
| That fly disorder’d with the wanton wind: | |
| For whom should Sappho use such arts as these? | |
| He’s gone, whom only she desired to please! | |
| Cupid’s light darts my tender bosom move; | |
| Still is there cause for Sappho still to love: | 90 |
| So from my birth the sisters fix’d my doom, | |
| And gave to Venus all my life to come; | |
| Or, while my Muse in melting notes complains, | |
| My yielding heart keeps measure to my strains. | |
| By charms like thine which all my soul have won, | 95 |
| Who might not—ah! who would not be undone? | |
| For those Aurora Cephalus might scorn, | |
| And with fresh blushes paint the conscious morn. | |
| For those might Cynthia lengthen Phaon’s sleep, | |
| And bid Endymion nightly tend his sheep. | 100 |
| Venus for those had rapt thee to the skies; | |
| But Mars on thee might look with Venus’ eyes. | |
| O scarce a youth, yet scarce a tender boy! | |
| O useful time for lovers to employ! | |
| Pride of thy age, and glory of thy race, | 105 |
| Come to these arms, and melt in this embrace! | |
| The vows you never will return, receive; | |
| And take, at least, the love you will not give. | |
| See, while I write, my words are lost in tears! | |
| The less my sense, the more my love appears. | 110 |
| Sure ’t was not much to bid one kind adieu | |
| (At least to feign was never hard to you): | |
| ‘Farewell, my Lesbian love,’ you might have said; | |
| Or coldly thus, ‘Farewell, O Lesbian maid!’ | |
| No tear did you, no parting kiss receive, | 115 |
| Nor knew I then how much I was to grieve. | |
| No lover’s gift your Sappho could confer, | |
| And wrongs and woes were all you left with her. | |
| No charge I gave you, and no charge could give, | |
| But this, ‘Be mindful of our loves, and live.’ | 120 |
| Now by the Nine, those powers ador’d by me, | |
| And Love, the God that ever waits on thee, | |
| When first I heard (from whom I hardly knew) | |
| That you were fled, and all my joys with you, | |
| Like some sad statue, speechless, pale, I stood, | 125 |
| Grief chill’d my breast, and stopt my freezing blood; | |
| No sigh to rise, no tear had power to flow, | |
| Fix’d in a stupid lethargy of woe: | |
| But when its way th’ impetuous passion found, | |
| I rend my tresses, and my breast I wound; | 130 |
| I rave, then weep; I curse, and then complain; | |
| Now swell to rage, now melt in tears again. | |
| Not fiercer pangs distract the mournful dame, | |
| Whose first-born infant feeds the funeral flame. | |
| My scornful brother with a smile appears, | 135 |
| Insults my woes, and triumphs in my tears; | |
| His hated image ever haunts my eyes; | |
| ‘And why this grief? thy daughter lives,’ he cries, | |
| Stung with my love, and furious with despair, | |
| All torn my garments, and my bosom bare, | 140 |
| My woes, thy crimes, I to the world proclaim, | |
| Such inconsistent things are Love and Shame! | |
| ’T is thou art all my care and my delight, | |
| My daily longing, and my dream by night: | |
| O night more pleasing than the brightest day, | 145 |
| When fancy gives what absence takes away, | |
| And, dress’d in all its visionary charms, | |
| Restores my fair deserter to my arms! | |
| Then round your neck in wanton wreaths I twine; | |
| Then you, methinks, as fondly circle mine: | 150 |
| A thousand tender words I hear and speak; | |
| A thousand melting kisses give and take: | |
| Then fiercer joys—I blush to mention these, | |
| Yet, while I blush, confess how much they please. | |
| But when, with day, the sweet delusions fly, | 155 |
| And all things wake to life and joy but I, | |
| As if once more forsaken, I complain, | |
| And close my eyes to dream of you again: | |
| Then frantic rise, and like some fury rove | |
| Thro’ lonely plains, and thro’ the silent grove; | 160 |
| As if the silent grove, and lonely plains, | |
| That knew my pleasures, could relieve my pains. | |
| I view the grotto, once the scene of love, | |
| The rocks around, the hanging roofs above, | |
| That charm’d me more, with native moss o’ergrown, | 165 |
| Than Phrygian marble, or the Parian stone: | |
| I find the shades that veil’d our joys before; | |
| But, Phaon gone, those shades delight no more. | |
| Here the press’d herbs with bending tops betray | |
| Where oft entwin’d in am’rous folds we lay; | 170 |
| I kiss that earth which once was press’d by you, | |
| And all with tears the with’ring herbs bedew. | |
| For thee the fading trees appear to mourn, | |
| And birds defer their songs till thy return: | |
| Night shades the groves, and all in silence lie, | 175 |
| All but the mournful Philomel and I: | |
| With mournful Philomel I join my strain, | |
| Of Tereus she, of Phaon I complain. | |
| A spring there is, whose silver waters show, | |
| Clear as a glass, the shining sands below: | 180 |
| A flowery lotos spreads its arms above, | |
| Shades all the banks, and seems itself a grove; | |
| Eternal greens the mossy margin grace, | |
| Watch’d by the sylvan genius of the place. | |
| Here as I lay, and swell’d with tears the flood, | 185 |
| Before my sight a wat’ry virgin stood: | |
| She stood and cried, ‘O you that love in vain! | |
| Fly hence, and seek the fair Leucadian main. | |
| There stands a rock, from whose impending steep | |
| Apollo’s fane surveys the rolling deep; | 190 |
| There injur’d lovers, leaping from above, | |
| Their flames extinguish, and forget to love. | |
| Deucalion once with hopeless fury burn’d; | |
| In vain he lov’d, relentless Pyrrha scorn’d; | |
| But when from hence he plunged into the main, | 195 |
| Deucalion scorn’d, and Pyrrha lov’d in vain. | |
| Haste, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throw | |
| Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below!’ | |
| She spoke, and vanish’d with the voice—I rise, | |
| And silent tears fall trickling from my eyes. | 200 |
| I go, ye Nymphs! those rocks and seas to prove; | |
| How much I fear, but ah, how much I love! | |
| I go, ye Nymphs! where furious love inspires, | |
| Let female fears submit to female fires. | |
| To rocks and seas I fly from Phaon’s hate, | 205 |
| And hope from seas and rocks a milder fate. | |
| Ye gentle gales, beneath my body blow, | |
| And softly lay me on the waves below! | |
| And thou, kind Love, my sinking limbs sustain, | |
| Spread thy soft wings, and waft me o’er the main, | 210 |
| Nor let a lover’s death the guiltless flood profane; | |
| On Phœbus’ shrine my harp I ’ll then bestow, | |
| And this inscription shall be placed below: | |
| ‘Here she who sung, to him that did inspire, | |
| Sappho to Phœbus consecrates her lyre: | 215 |
| What suits with Sappho, Phœbus, suits with thee; | |
| The Gift, the Giver, and the God agree.’ | |
| But why, alas! relentless youth, ah why | |
| To distant seas must tender Sappho fly? | |
| Thy charms than those may far more powerful be, | 220 |
| And Phœbus’ self is less a God to me. | |
| Ah! canst thou doom me to the rocks and sea, | |
| Oh! far more faithless and more hard than they? | |
| Ah! canst thou rather see this tender breast | |
| Dash’d on these rocks than to thy bosom press’d? | 225 |
| This breast which once, in vain! you liked so well | |
| Where the Loves play’d, and where the Muses dwell. | |
| Alas! the Muses now no more inspire; | |
| Untuned my lute, and silent is my lyre. | |
| My languid numbers have forgot to flow, | 230 |
| And fancy sinks beneath a weight of woe. | |
| Ye Lesbian virgins, and ye Lesbian dames, | |
| Themes of my verse, and objects of my flames, | |
| No more your groves with my glad songs shall ring, | |
| No more these hands shall touch the trembling string: | 235 |
| My Phaon’s fled, and I those arts resign; | |
| (Wretch that I am, to call that Phaon mine!) | |
| Return, fair youth, return, and bring along | |
| Joy to my soul, and vigour to my song: | |
| Absent from thee, the poet’s flame expires; | 240 |
| But ah! how fiercely burn the lover’s fires! | |
| Gods! can no prayers, no sighs, no numbers move | |
| One savage heart, or teach it how to love? | |
| The winds my prayers, my sighs, my numbers bear, | |
| The flying winds have lost them all in air! | 245 |
| Oh when, alas! shall more auspicious gales | |
| To these fond eyes restore thy welcome sails! | |
| If you return—ah, why these long delays? | |
| Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays. | |
| O launch thy bark, nor fear the wat’ry plain; | 250 |
| Venus for thee shall smooth her native main. | |
| O launch thy bark, secure of prosp’rous gales; | |
| Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sails. | |
| If you will fly—(yet ah! what cause can be, | |
| Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?) | 255 |
| If not from Phaon I must hope for ease, | |
| Ah let me seek it from the raging seas: | |
| To raging seas unpitied I ’ll remove, | |
| And either cease to live or cease to love! | |
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