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: