My vows the winds disperse, and make their sport,
But ne'er will waft him to the Lesbian port.

Yet if you purpose to return, 'tis wrong
To let your mistress languish here so long :
Venus for your fair voyage will compose
The fea, for from the fea the goddess rofe :
Cupid, affifted with propitious gales,
Will hand the rudder, and direct the fails.
But, if relentless to my prayer you prove,
If till, unkind without a caufe, you'll rove,
And ne'er to Sappho's longing eyes restore
That object, which her hourly vows implore;
'Twill be compaffion now t' avow your hate;
Write, and confirm the rigour of my fate!
Then, fteel'd with refolution by despair,
For cure I'll to the kinder seas repair :
That last relief for love-fick minds I'll try;
Phoebus may grant what Phaon could deny.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE ancients have left us little farther account o Phaon, than that he was an old mariner, whom Venus transformed into a very beautiful youth, whom Sappho, and feveral other Lesbian ladies, fell paffionately in love with; and therefore I thought it might be pardonable to vary the circumftances of his ftory, and to add what I thought proper in the following epistle.

PHA ON TO SAP PHO.

Soon perceiv'd from whence your letter came,
Before I faw it fign'd with Sappho's name :
Such tender thoughts in fuch a flowing verfe,
Did Phoebus to the flying nymph rehearse;
Yet Fate was deaf to all his powerful charms,
And tore the beauteous Daphne from his arms!
With fuch concern your paffion I furvey,

As when I view a veffel tofs'd at fea;

I beg each friendly power the ftorm may cease,
And every warring wave be lull'd in peace.
What can I more than with? for who can free
The wretched from the woe the gods decree ?
With generous pity I'll repay your flame;
Pity! 'tis what deferves a softer name:

Which yet, I fear, of equal ufe would prove
To footh a tempeft, as abate your love.

How can my art your fierce difease subdue?
I want, alas! a greater cure than you :
Benumb'd in death the cold physician lies,
While for his help the feverish patient cries:
Call me not cruel, but reproach my fate,
And, liftening while my woes I here relate,
Let your soft bofom heave with tender sighs,
Let melting forrow languifh in your eyes ;
Piteous deplore a wretch constrain'd to rove,
Whose crime and punishment is flighted love;
Fix'd for his guilt, to every coming age,
A monument of Cytherea's rage.

At Melea born, my race unknown to fame,
With oars I ply'd; Colymbus was my name;
A name that from the diving birds I bore,
Which feek their fifhy food along the fhore.
One fummer-eve in port I left my fail,

And with my partners fought a neighbouring vale;
What time the rural nymphs repair'd to pay
Their floral honours to the Queen of May.
At first their various charms my choice confufe,
For what is choice where each is fit to chufe?
But love or fate at length my bofom fir'd
With a bright maid in myrtle-green attir'd;
A fhepherdefs the was, and on the lawn
Sate to the fetting-fun from dewy dawn ;

Yet fairer than the nymphs who guard the ftreams
In pearly caves, and fhun the burning beams.

I whisper

I whisper love; fhe flies; I ftill pursue,
To prefs her to the joy she never knew:
And while I fpeak the virgin blushes spread
Her damafk beauty with a warmer red.
I vow'd unshaken faith, invoking loud
Venus, t' atteft the folemn faith I vow'd;
Invoking all the radiant lights above,

(But most the lamp that lights the realm of love)
No more to guide me with their friendly rays,
But leave my fhip to perish on the seas,
If the dear charmer ever chanc'd to find
My heart difloyal, or my look unkind.

A maid will liften when her lover fwears,
And think his faith more real than her fears.
The careful thepherdefs fecur'd her flocks
From the devouring wolf, and wily fox,
Yet fell herself an undefended prey

To one more cruel and more falfe than they.
The nuptial joys we there confummate foon,
Safe in the friendly filence of the moon ;
And till the birds proclaim'd the dawning day,
Beneath a fhade of flowers in transport lay :
I rofe, and foftly fighing, view'd her o'er ;
How chang'd, I thought, from what the was before!
Yet ftill repeated (eager to be gone)

My former pledges, with a fainter tone,

And promis'd quick return: the penfive fair
Went with reluctance to her feecy care;
While I refolv'd to quit my native shore,
Never to fee the late-lov'd Malea more.

Fresh

Fresh on the waves the morning breezes play,
To bear my veffel and my vows away:
With profperous fpeed I fly before the wind,
And leave the length of Lefbos all behind:
Far diftant from my Malean love at lait,
(Secure with twenty leagues between us caft)
I furl my fails, and on the Sigrian shore,
Adopting that my feat, the veffel moor.
Sigrium, from whofe aerial height I fpy
The diftant fields that bore imperial Troy,
Which, ftill accurs'd for Helen's broken vow,
Procure thin crops, ungrateful to the plow.
I gaze, revolving in my guilty mind;
What future vengeance will my falfehood find,
When kings, and empires, no forgiveness gain'd
For violated rites, and faith prophan'd!

Sea-faring on that coast I led my life,
A commoner of love, without a wife;
Content with cafual joys: and vainly thought
Venus forgave the perjur'd, or forgot..
And now my fixtieth year began to fhed
An undift nguifh'd winter o'er my head;
When, bent for Tenedos, a country dame
(I thought her fuch) for fpeedy paffage came.
A palfy shook her limbs; a fhrivel'd skin
But ill conceal'd the skeleton within;
A monument of Time: With equal grace
Her garb had poverty to fuit her face.
Extorting firft my price, I fpread my fail,
And fteer my courfe before a merry gale;