Where the loves played, 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!)[37]
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,[38]
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![39]
If you return--ah why these long delays?
Poor Sappho dies, while careless Phaon stays.
O launch the 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.[40]
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!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The ancients have left us little further account of Phaon
than that he was an old mariner, whom Venus transformed into a very
beautiful youth, whom Sappho and several other Lesbian ladies, fell
passionately in love with.--FENTON.]

[Footnote 2: Mrs. Behn's translation:

Say, lovely youth, why would'st thou thus betray.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 3: In the MS.:

These mournful numbers suit a mournful muse.]

[Footnote 4: Our poet has not varied much here from the couplet of his
predecessor, Sir Carr Scrope:

I burn, I burn, like kindled fields of corn,
When by the driving winds the flames are borne.--WAKEFIELD.

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