A spring there is, whose silver waters show, Clear as a glass, the shining sands below: 180 A flowery lotus spreads its arms above, Shades all the banks, and seems itself a grove; Eternal greens the mossy margin grace, Watch'd by the sylvan genius of the place. Here as I lay, and swell'd with tears the flood, Before my sight a watery 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. Deucalion once with hopeless fury burn'd, In vain he loved, relentless Pyrrha scorn'd: But when from hence he plunged into the main, Deucalion scorn'd, and Pyrrha loved in vain. Haste, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throw Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below!' She spoke, and vanish'd 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, And hope from seas and rocks a milder fate. Ye gentle gales, beneath my body blow, And softly lay me on the waves below! 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; 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? Thy charms than those may far more powerful be, 220 And Phoebus' self is less a god to me. 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 Dash'd on these rocks than to thy bosom press'd? This breast which once, in vain, you liked so well; Where the Loves play'd, 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: My Phaon's fled, and I those arts resign; (Wretch that I am, to call that Phaon mine!) 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, The flying winds have lost them all in air! Oh when, alas! shall more auspicious gales To these fond eyes restore thy welcome sails? If you return--ah, why these long delays? Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays. Oh launch thy bark, nor fear the watery plain; 250 Venus for thee shall smooth her native main. Oh launch thy bark, secure of prosperous gales; Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sails. If you will fly--(yet ah! what cause can be, Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?) 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!