Page:The Works of Alexander Pope (1717).djvu/310
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SAPHO to PHAON.
Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow,
And tun'd my heart to elegies of woe.
I burn, I burn, as when thro' ripen'd corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are born!
Phaon to Ætna's scorching fields retires,
While I consume with more than Ætna's fires!
No more my soul a charm in music finds,
Music has charms alone for peaceful minds:
Soft scenes of solitude no more can please,
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease:
No more the Lesbian dames my passion move,
Once the dear objects of my guilty love;
All other loves are lost in only thine,
Ah youth ungrateful to a flame like mine!
Whom would not all those blooming charms surprize;
Those heav'nly looks, and dear, deluding eyes?
The harp and bow would you like Phœbus bear,
A brighter Phœbus, Phaon might appear,
Would you with ivy wreath your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare:
And tun'd my heart to elegies of woe.
I burn, I burn, as when thro' ripen'd corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are born!
Phaon to Ætna's scorching fields retires,
While I consume with more than Ætna's fires!
No more my soul a charm in music finds,
Music has charms alone for peaceful minds:
Soft scenes of solitude no more can please,
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease:
No more the Lesbian dames my passion move,
Once the dear objects of my guilty love;
All other loves are lost in only thine,
Ah youth ungrateful to a flame like mine!
Whom would not all those blooming charms surprize;
Those heav'nly looks, and dear, deluding eyes?
The harp and bow would you like Phœbus bear,
A brighter Phœbus, Phaon might appear,
Would you with ivy wreath your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare:
Yet