Sacred Texts  Classics  Sappho  Index  Previous  Next 
Buy this Book at Amazon.com


Sappho and Phaon, by Mary Robinson, [1796], at sacred-texts.com


XLII. Her last Appeal to Phaon.

Oh! can’st thou bear to see this faded frame,
Deform’d and mangled by the rocky deep?
Wilt thou remember, and forbear to weep,
My fatal fondness, and my peerless fame?
Soon o’er this heart, now warm with passion’s flame,
The howling winds and foamy waves shall sweep;
Those eyes be ever clos’d in death’s cold sleep,
And all of Sappho perish, but her name!
Yet, if the Fates suspend their barb’rous ire,
If days less mournful, Heav’n designs for me!
If rocks grow kind, and winds and waves conspire,
To bear me softly on the swelling sea;eacute;
To Phoebus only will I tune my Lyre,
"What suits with Sappho, Phoebus suits with thee!"


Next: XLIII. Her Reflections on the Leucadian Rock before she perishes.