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Phaon was still obdurate, and Sappho was transported with the violence of her passion. There was a promontory in Acarnania called Leucate, on the top of which was a little temple dedicated to Apollo. In this temple it was usual for despairing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterwards to fling themselves from the top of the precipice into the sea; for it was an established opinion that all those who were taken up alive would immediately be cured of their former passion. Sappho tried the remedy, but perished in the experiment. The Romans erected a most noble statue of porphyry to her memory; and the Mitylenians paid her sovereign honours after her death, and coined money with her head for the impress. She wrote nine books of odes, besides elegies, iambics, monodies, and other pieces, of which we have nothing remaining entire but a Hymn to Venus, an ode preserved by Longinus (which, however, the learned acknowledge to be imperfect), two epigrams, and some other little fragments." Addison's warm eulogium on the poetical fragments of Sappho (Spectator, No. 223) is well known; and he is supposed to have assisted Ambrose Philips in his beautiful version of the second ode.]

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 woe.

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I burn, I burn, as when through ripen'd corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are borne!
Phaon to Ætna's scorching field retires;

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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 guilty 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 Phoebus bear,
A brighter Phoebus Phaon might appear;
Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare :

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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 even those gods contend in charms with thee.
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 Venus tunes, and all her loves inspire.
To me what Nature has in charms denied,

Is well by wit's more lasting flame 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,

By 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:
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,
And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
In all I pleased, 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,
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
That wandering heart which I so lately lost;
Nor be with all those tempting words abused,
Those tempting words were all to Sappho used.

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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 sorrow from my tender years,
My parent's ashes drank my early tears:
My brother next, neglecting wealth and fame,
Ignobly burnt 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,

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Nor on my hands 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,

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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 yielding heart keeps measure 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,

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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.

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Sure 'twas not much to bid one kind adieu,
(At least to feign was never hard to you);
Farewell, my Lesbian love, you migh. 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 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.
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,

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Like some sad statue, speechless, pale, I stood,

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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 woe:

But when its way th' impetuous passion found,
I rend my tresses, and my breast I wound;
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,
Insults my woes, and triumphs in my tears.
His hated image ever haunts my eyes,

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And, Why this grief? thy daughter lives, he cries.

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Stung with my love, and furious with despair,
All torn my garments, and my bosom bare,
My woes, thy crimes, I to the world proclaim;
Such inconsistent things are love and shame!
"Tis thou art all my care, and my delight,
My daily longing, and my dream by night:
Oh night more pleasing than the brightest day,

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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:

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A thousand tender words I hear and speak;

A thousand melting kisses give and take:

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