Page:The Works of Alexander Pope (1717).djvu/312
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
276
SAPHO to PHAON.
By none alas! by none thou can'st be mov'd,
Phaon alone by Phaon must be lov'd!
Yet once thy Sapho could thy cares employ,
Once in her arms you center'd all your joy:
Still all those joys to my remembrance move,
For oh! how vast a memory has Love?
My music, then, you could for ever hear,
And all my words were music to your ear.
You stop'd with kisses my inchanting tongue,
And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
In all I pleas'd, but most in what was best;
And the last joy was dearer than the rest.
Then with each word, each glance, each motion fir'd,
You still enjoy'd, and yet you still desir'd,
Till all dissolving in the trance we lay,
And in tumultuous raptures dy'd away.
The fair Sicilians now thy soul inflame;
Why was I born, ye Gods, a Lesbian dame?
But ah beware, Sicilian nymphs! nor boast
That wandring heart which I so lately lost;
Phaon alone by Phaon must be lov'd!
Yet once thy Sapho could thy cares employ,
Once in her arms you center'd all your joy:
Still all those joys to my remembrance move,
For oh! how vast a memory has Love?
My music, then, you could for ever hear,
And all my words were music to your ear.
You stop'd with kisses my inchanting tongue,
And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
In all I pleas'd, but most in what was best;
And the last joy was dearer than the rest.
Then with each word, each glance, each motion fir'd,
You still enjoy'd, and yet you still desir'd,
Till all dissolving in the trance we lay,
And in tumultuous raptures dy'd away.
The fair Sicilians now thy soul inflame;
Why was I born, ye Gods, a Lesbian dame?
But ah beware, Sicilian nymphs! nor boast
That wandring heart which I so lately lost;
Nor