SAY, lovely Youth, that dost my heart command, | |
Can Phaons eyes forget his Sapphos 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 ripend corn | |
By driving winds the spreading flames are borne! | 10 |
Phaon to Ætnas scorching fields retires, | |
While I consume with more than Ætnas 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 heavnly looks, and dear deluding eyes? | |
The harp and bow would you like Phbus bear, | |
A brighter Phbus Phaon might appear; | |
Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair, | 25 |
Not Bacchus self with Phaon could compare: | |
Yet Phbus lovd, and Bacchus felt the flame, | |
One Daphne warmd, and one the Cretan dame; | |
Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me, | |
Than evn those Gods, contend in charms with thee. | 30 |
The Muses teach me all their softest lays, | |
And the wide world resounds with Sapphos 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 Wits more lasting flames supplied. | |
Tho short my stature, yet my name extends | |
To Heavn itself, and earths remotest ends. | 40 |
Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame | |
Inspired young Perseus with a genrous flame; | |
Turtles and doves of diffrent hues unite, | |
And glossy jet is paird 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 lovd! | |
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 stoppd with kisses my enchanting tongue, | 55 |
And found my kisses sweeter than my song. | |
In all I pleasd, 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 enjoyd, 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 wandring 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 Sicilias happy plains, | |
Have pity, Venus, on your poets 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 burnd in a destructive flame: | |
An infant daughter late my griefs increasd, | |
And all a mothers 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 curld diffuse | |
The costly sweetness of Arabian dews, | |
Nor braids of gold the varied tresses bind, | 85 |
That fly disorderd with the wanton wind: | |
For whom should Sappho use such arts as these? | |
Hes gone, whom only she desired to please! | |
Cupids light darts my tender bosom move; | |
Still is there cause for Sappho still to love: | 90 |
So from my birth the sisters fixd 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 notah! who would not be undone? | |
For those Aurora Cephalus might scorn, | |
And with fresh blushes paint the conscious morn. | |
For those might Cynthia lengthen Phaons 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 lovers 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 adord 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 chilld my breast, and stopt my freezing blood; | |
No sigh to rise, no tear had power to flow, | |
Fixd 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, dressd 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 joysI 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 charmd me more, with native moss oergrown, | 165 |
Than Phrygian marble, or the Parian stone: | |
I find the shades that veild our joys before; | |
But, Phaon gone, those shades delight no more. | |
Here the pressd herbs with bending tops betray | |
Where oft entwind in amrous folds we lay; | 170 |
I kiss that earth which once was pressd by you, | |
And all with tears the withring 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, | |
Watchd by the sylvan genius of the place. | |
Here as I lay, and swelld with tears the flood, | 185 |
Before my sight a watry 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 | |
Apollos fane surveys the rolling deep; | 190 |
There injurd lovers, leaping from above, | |
Their flames extinguish, and forget to love. | |
Deucalion once with hopeless fury burnd; | |
In vain he lovd, relentless Pyrrha scornd; | |
But when from hence he plunged into the main, | 195 |
Deucalion scornd, and Pyrrha lovd in vain. | |
Haste, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throw | |
Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below! | |
She spoke, and vanishd with the voiceI 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 Phaons 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 oer the main, | 210 |
Nor let a lovers death the guiltless flood profane; | |
On Phbus 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 Phbus consecrates her lyre: | 215 |
What suits with Sappho, Phbus, 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 Phbus 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 | |
Dashd on these rocks than to thy bosom pressd? | 225 |
This breast which once, in vain! you liked so well | |
Where the Loves playd, 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 Phaons 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 poets flame expires; | 240 |
But ah! how fiercely burn the lovers 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 returnah, why these long delays? | |
Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays. | |
O launch thy bark, nor fear the watry plain; | 250 |
Venus for thee shall smooth her native main. | |
O launch thy bark, secure of prosprous 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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