The birds and trees to grief affistance bring,
Thefe drop their leaves, and they forbear to fing:
Poor Philomel, of all the quire, alone
For mangled Itys warbles out her moan;
Her moan for him trills fweetly through the grove,
While Sappho fings of ill-requited love.
To this dear folitude the Naiads bring
Their fruitful urns, to form a filver spring:
The trees that on the fhady margin grow
Are green above, the banks are green below:
Here while by forrow lull'd afleep I lay,
Thus faid the guardian nymph, or feem'd to say:
Fly, Sappho, fly; to cure this deep despair,
To the Leucadian rock in hafte repair;
High on whofe hoary top an awful fane,
To Phœbus rear'd, furveys the fubject main.
This defperate cure, of old, Deucalion try'd,
For love to fury wrought by Pyrrha's pride;
Into the waves, as holy rites require,
Headlong he leap'd, and quench'd his hopeless fire:
Her frozen breaft a fudden flame fubdued,
And the who fled the youth, the youth purfued.
Like him, to give thy raging paffion ease,
Precipitate thyfelf into the seas.
This faid, fhe difappear'd. I deadly wan
Rofe up, and gufhing tears unbounded ran :
I fly, ye nymphs, I fly; though fear affail,
The woman, yet the lover muft prevail.
In death what terrors can deferve my care?
The pangs of death are gentler than defpair.
Ye winds, and Cupid thou, to meet my fall,
Your downy pinions spread! my weight is finall.
Thus refcued, to the god of verfe I'll bow,
Hang up my lute, and thus infcribe my vow:
To Phoebus grateful Sappho gave this lute;
The gift did both the god and giver fuit.
But, Phaon, why should I this toil endure,
When thy return would foon complete the cure?
Thy beauty, and its balmy power, would be
A Phoebus and Leucadian rock to me.
O harder than the rock to which I go,
And deafer than the waves that war below!
Think yet, oh think! fhall future ages tell
That I to Phaon's fcorn a victim feil?
Or hadft thou rather fee this tender breaft
Bruis'd on the clift, than clofe to Phaon's preft?
This breaft, which, fill'd with bright poetic fire,
You made me once believe you did admire ?
O could it now fupply me with addrefs
To plead my caufe, and court thee with fuccefs!
But mighty woes my genius quite control,
And damp the rifing vigour of my foul:
No more, ye Lesbian nymphs, defire a fong,
Mute is my voice, my lute is all unftrung.
My Phaon's fled, who made my fancy shine,
(Ah! yet I fcarce forbear to call him---mine,)
Phaon is fled but bring the youth again,
Infpiring ardors will revive my vein.
But why, alas! this unavailing prayer?
Vain are my vows, and feet with common air:
My vows the winds difperfe, and make their sport,
But ne'er will waft him to the Lesbian port.
Yet if you purpose to return, 'tis wrong
To let your miftrefs languish here fo long :
Venus for your fair voyage will compofe
The fea, for from the fea the goddess rofe:
Cupid, affifted with propitious gales,
Will hand the rudder, and direct the fails.
But, if relentless to my prayer you prove,
If ftill, unkind without a caufe, you'll rove,
And ne'er to Sappho's longing eyes restore
That object, which her hourly vows implore;
'Twill be compaffion now t' avow your hate,
Write, and confirm the rigour of my fate!
Then, fteel'd with refolution by despair,
For cure I'll to the kinder feas repair :
That laft relief for love-fick minds I'll try;
Phoebus may grant what Phaon could deny.
THE ancients have left us little farther account o Phaon, than that he was an old mariner, whom Venus transformed into a very beautiful youth, whom Sappho, and several other Lesbian ladies, fell paffionately in love with; and therefore I thought it might be pardonable to vary the circumftances of his ftory, and to add what I thought proper in the following epistle.
Soon perceiv'd from whence your letter came,
Before I faw it fign'd with Sappho's name :
Such tender thoughts in fuch a flowing verfe,
Did Phoebus to the flying nymph rehearse;
Yet Fate was deaf to all his powerful charms,
And tore the beauteous Daphne from his arms!
With fuch concern your paffion I furvey,
As when I view a veffel tofs'd at fea;
I beg each friendly power the storm may cease,
And every warring wave be lull'd in peace.
What can I more than with? for who can free
The wretched from the woe the gods decree ?
With generous pity I'll repay your flame;
Pity! 'tis what deferves a fofter name:
Which yet, I fear, of equal use would prove
To footh a tempeft, as abate your love.
How can my art your fierce disease fubdue?
I want, alas! a greater cure than you :
Benumb'd in death the cold physician lies,
While for his help the feverish patient cries:
Call me not cruel, but reproach my fate,
And, listening while my woes I here relate,
Let your foft bofom heave with tender fighs,
Let melting forrow languifh in your eyes;
Piteous deplore a wretch constrain'd to rove,
Whofe crime and punishment is flighted love;
Fix'd for his guilt, to every coming age,
A monument of Cytherea's rage.
At Melea born, my race unknown to fame,
With oars I ply'd; Colymbus was my name;
A name that from the diving birds I bore,
Which feek their fifhy food along the fhore.
-One fummer-eve in port I left my fail,
And with my partners fought a neighbouring vale;
What time the rural nymphs repair'd to pay
Their floral honours to the Queen of May.
At first their various charms my choice confufe,
For what is choice where each is fit to chufe?
But love or fate at length my bofom fir'd
With a bright maid in myrtle-green attir'd;
A fhepherdefs fhe was, and on the lawn
Sate to the fetting-fun from dewy dawn;
Yet fairer than the nymphs who guard the streams
In pearly caves, and fhun the burning beams.
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