eems itself a grove;
Eternal greens the mossy margin grace,
Watched by the sylvan genius of the place:
Here as I lay, and swelled with tears the flood,[30] 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 injured lovers, leaping from above,
Their flames extinguish, and forget to love.[31]
Deucalion once with hopeless fury burned,
In vain he loved, relentless Pyrrha scorned:
But when from hence he plunged into the main, 195
Deucalion scorned, and Pyrrha loved in vain.
Haste, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throw
Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below!"[32]
She spoke, and vanished 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![33]
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 Phoebus' 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 Phoebus consecrates her lyre; 215
What suits with Sappho, Phoebus, 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?[34]
Thy charms than those may far more pow'rful be, 220
And Phoebus' self is less a god to me.[35]
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
Dashed on these rocks, than to thy bosom pressed? 225
This breast which once, in vain! you liked so well;[36]