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! THE FABLE OF DRYOPE.[56] FROM THE NINTH BOOK OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. She said, and for her lost Galanthis sighs; When the fair consort of her son replies: 'Since you a servant's ravish'd form bemoan, And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own, Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate A nearer woe, a sister's stranger fate. No nymph of all Oechalia could compare For beauteous form with Dryope the fair, Her tender mother's only hope and pride, (Myself the offspring of a second bride). 10 This nymph, compress'd by him who rules the day, Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey, Andraemon loved; and, bless'd in all those charms That pleased a god, succeeded to her arms.