Alas the torch of life was quench'd for ever !
I saw her when they stretch'd her on the sand, —
The dank sea-weeds all wreathed amidst her hair^



SAPPHO. 18S

The shells and corals shrined about her heart.
Whereon I put my hand, but all was cold.
Yet o'er her features, humid with the surfi,
There lingered gleams of intellectual light —
The last faint glories of departed mind :
And we gazed on her as the Delphians gaze
On some expiring Pythoness, who leaves
Her mystic signs and warnings to mankind.
Imbrius.
Some tell me she did speak, heard'st thou her words ?

Lynceus.
I heard no voice save that which spake to all
In her distracted life and desperate death,
Which long, methinks, might prophesy to man :
Or on her silent lips we read this truth,
" I leave none but the dying on the earth!**



N 4



185



NOTES TO SAPPHO.
^•^^^■•■■■^p*



(^) And soft as those the lyre of Orpheus breathed, — P. 122«

Orphcw, whose songs wrought so many prodigiesi haying.
been torn to pieces by the Bacchantes, his head and lyre
were thrown into the Hebrus, a river in Thrace, and con-
veyed by the waves of the sea to the shores of Meth3mina«
In its passage, the voice of Orpheus sent forth enchanting
sounds, accompanied by the l3nre. The strings of which were
gently agitated by the winds.
See Ovid. Metam, lib. ii. v. 55. Lucian. Adv, Indoctm
t. iii. p. 109.
(2) They have decreed your banishment Jrom Lesbos.^-F. 127.
