Felicia Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 29 1831/The Last Song of Sappho
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 29, Page 129
THE LAST SONG OF SAPPHO,
BY MRS HEMANS.
What is Poesy, but to create
From overfeeling, good or ill, and aim
At an external life beyond our fate?
Bestowing fire from Heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain!
And vultures to the heart of the bestower,
Who, having lavish'd his high gift in vain,
Lies chain'd to his lone rock by the sea shore.
Byron's Prophecy of Dante.
Sound on, thou dark unslumbering sea!
My dirge is in thy moan;
My spirit finds response in thee,
To its own ceaseless cry—"Alone, alone!”
Yet send me back one other word,
Ye tones that never cease!
Oh! let your hidden leaves be stirr'd,
And say, deep waters! can you give me peace?
Away!—my weary soul hath sought
In vain one echoing sigh,
One answer to consuming thought
In human breasts—and will the wave reply?
Sound on, thou dark unslumbering sea!
Sound in thy scorn and pride!
I ask not, alien world! from thee,
What my own kindred earth hath still denied!
And yet I loved that earth so well,
With all its lovely things!
Was it for this the death-wind fell
On my rich lyre, and quench'd its living strings?
Let them lie silent at my feet!
Since, broken even as they,
The heart, whose music made them sweet,
Hath pour'd on desert sands its wealth away.
Yet glory's light hath touch'd my name,
The laurel wreath is mine—
With a worn heart, a weary frame,
O! restless Deep! I come to make them thine!
Give to that crown, that burning crown,
Place in thy darkest hold!
Bury my anguish, my renown,
With hidden wrecks, lost gems, and wasted gold!
Thou sea-bird, on the billow's crest,
Thou hast thy love, thy home!
They wait thee in the quiet nest—
And I—unsought, unwatch'd for—I too come!
I, with this winged nature fraught,
These visions, brightly free,
This boundless love, this fiery thought—
Alone, I come! O! give me peace, dark Sea!