And has fled with all his charms Where the Stygian monarch reigns, Where no sun the climate warms!-- Dread Pluto then, as once before, Pass'd Avernus' waters o'er; Left the dark and dismal shore, And strait enamour'd, as he gloomy stood, Seiz'd Phaon by the waters of the wood. Now o'er the silent plain We for our much lov'd Phaon call again, And Phaon! Phaon! ring the woods amain-- From beneath this myrtle tree, Musidora, wretched maid, How shall Phaon answer thee, Deep in vaulted caverns laid!-- Thrice the myrtle tree hath bloom'd Since our Phaon was entomb'd, I, who had his heart, below, I have rais'd this turret high, A monument of love and woe That Phaon's name may never die.-- With deepest grief, O muse divine, Around his tomb thy laurels twine And shed thy sorrow, for to morrow Thou, perhaps, shalt cease to glow-- My hopes are crost, my lover lost, And I must weeping o'er the mountains go! _Sappho_ Ah, faithless Phaon, thus from me to rove, And bless my rival in a foreign grove! Could Sicily more charming forests show Than those that in thy native Lesbos grow-- Did fairer fruits adorn the bending tree Than those that Lesbos did present to thee! Or didst thou find through all the changing fair One beauty that with Sappho could compare! So soft, so sweet, so charming and so kind, A face so fair, such beauties of the mind-- Not Musidora can be rank'd with me Who sings so well thy funeral song for thee!--[34] I'll go!--and from the high Leucadian steep Take my last farewell in the lover's leap, I charge thee, Phaon, by this deed of woe To meet me in the Elysian shades below, No rival beauty shall pretend a share, Sappho alone shall walk with Phaon there. She spoke, and downward from the mountain's height Plung'd in the plashy wave to everlasting night. [33] Text from the edition of 1786. For the edition of 1795 Freneau cut out the song of Ismenius, beginning "Thou swain that lov'st the morning air," and extending to the speech of Sappho, "Ah, faithless Phaon." [34] This and the preceding line omitted from the later versions. THE POWER OF FANCY[35] Written 1770.