TRANSLATIONS, &c.
137
What, after all my art, will you demand,
Before the whole is read, the writer's hand?
And could you guess from whom this letter came
Before you saw it sign'd with Sappho's name?
Don't wonder, since I'm form'd for lyrics, why 10
The strain is turn'd to plaintive elegy:
I mourn my slighted love: alas! my lute,
And sprightly odes, would ill with sorrow suit.
I'm scorch'd, I burn like fields of corn on fire,
When winds to fan the furious blaze conspire. 10
To flaming Ætna Phaon's pleas'd to roam,
But Sappho feels a fiercer flame at home.
No more my thoughts in even numbers flow;
Verse best befits a mind devoid of woe.
No more I court the nymphs I once carest, 15
But Phaon rules unrivall'd in my breast.
Fair is thy face, thy youth is fit for joy;
A fatal face to me, too cruel Boy!
Enslav'd to those enchanting looks, that wear
The blush of Bacchus and Apollo's air: 20
Assume the garb of either god, in thee
We ev'ry grace of either god may see;
Before the whole is read, the writer's hand?
And could you guess from whom this letter came
Before you saw it sign'd with Sappho's name?
Don't wonder, since I'm form'd for lyrics, why 10
The strain is turn'd to plaintive elegy:
I mourn my slighted love: alas! my lute,
And sprightly odes, would ill with sorrow suit.
I'm scorch'd, I burn like fields of corn on fire,
When winds to fan the furious blaze conspire. 10
To flaming Ætna Phaon's pleas'd to roam,
But Sappho feels a fiercer flame at home.
No more my thoughts in even numbers flow;
Verse best befits a mind devoid of woe.
No more I court the nymphs I once carest, 15
But Phaon rules unrivall'd in my breast.
Fair is thy face, thy youth is fit for joy;
A fatal face to me, too cruel Boy!
Enslav'd to those enchanting looks, that wear
The blush of Bacchus and Apollo's air: 20
Assume the garb of either god, in thee
We ev'ry grace of either god may see;
