Sappho and Phaon, by Mary Robinson, [1796], at sacred-texts.com
Sappho and Phaon, by Mary Robinson, [1796], at sacred-texts.com
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"Flendus amor meus est; elegeia flebile carmen; non facit ad lacrymas barbitos ulla meas." Ovid. "Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow, And tun’d my heart to elegies of woe." Pope.
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Favour’d by Heav’n are those, ordain’d to taste
The bliss supreme that kindles fancy’s fire;
Whose magic fingers sweep the muses’ lyre,
In varying cadence, eloquently chaste!
Well may the mind, with tuneful numbers grac’d,
To Fame’s immortal attributes aspire,
Above the treach’rous spells of low desire,
That wound the sense, by vulgar joys debas’d.
For thou, blest Poesy! with godlike pow’rs
To calm the miseries of man wert giv’n;
When passion rends, and hopeless love devours,
By mem’ry goaded, and by frenzy driv’n,
’Tis thine to guide him ’midst Elysian bow’rs,
And shew his fainting soul,—a glimpse of Heav’n.