THE poetess Sappho, forsaken by her lover Phaon, who was gone from Lesbos to Sicily, and resolved, in despair, to drown herself, writes this letter to him before she dies.
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,
The lute neglected, and the lyric muse;
Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow,
And tuned my heart to elegies of wo.
I burn, I burn, as when through ripen'd corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are borne !
Phaon to Ætna's scorching fields retires,
While I consume with more than Etna'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 ;
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease:
No more the Lesbian dames my passion move,
Once the dear objects of my tender love;
All other loves are lost in only thine,
Ah youth, ungrateful to a flame like mine!
Whom would not all those blooming charms surprise,
Those heavenly looks, and dear deluding eyes?
The harp and bow would you like Phœbus bear,
A brighter Phoebus Phaon might appear;
Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus self with Phaon could compare :
Yet Phoebus loved, 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.
Though great Alcæus more sublimely sings,
And strikes with bolder rage the sounding strings,
No less renown attends the moving lyre,
Which Cupid tunes, and Venus does inspire.
To me what Nature has in charms denied
Is well by wit's more lasting charms supplied.
Though short my stature, yet my name extends
To heaven itself, and earth's remotest ends.
Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame
Inspired young Perseus with a generous flame.
Turtles and doves of differing hues unite,
And glossy jet is pair'd with shining white.
If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign,
But such as merit, such as equal thine,
But none, alas! by none thou canst be moved,
Phaon alone by Phaon must be loved!
Yet once thy Sappho could thy cares employ,
Once in her arms you centred all your joy :
Still all those joys to my remembrance move,
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,
And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
The fair Sicilians now thy soul inflame;
Why was I born, ye gods, a Lesbian dame?
But ah beware, Sicilian nymphs! nor boast
That wandering 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!
Shall Fortune still in one sad tenor run,
And still increase the woes so soon begun?
Inured to sorrows from my tender years,
My parent's ashes drank my early tears;
My brother next, neglecting wealth and fame,
Ignobly burn'd in a destructive flame.
An infant daughter late my griefs increased,
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?
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,
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:
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 heart relents, and answers to my strains.
By charms like thine which all my soul have won,
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.
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,
Come to these arms, and melt in this embrace!
The vows you never will return, receive;
And take at least the love thou wilt not give.
See, while I write, my words are lost in tears;
The less my sense, the more my love appears.
Sure 'twas 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,
Nor knew I then how much I was to grieve.
No gift on thee thy 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.'
Now by the Nine, those powers adored 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;
Grief chill'd my breast, and stopp'd my freezing blood;
No sigh to rise, no tear had power to flow;
Fix'd in a stupid lethargy of wo.
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