Letitia Elizabeth Landon - The Improvisatrice - Sappho’s Song

Lyrics

Farewell, my lute!—and would that I Had never waked thy burning chords! Poison has been upon thy sigh And fever has breathed in thy words Yet wherefore, wherefore should I blame Thy power, thy spell, my gentlest lute? I should have been the wretch I am Had every chord of thine been mute It was my evil star above Not my sweet lute, that wrought me wrong; It was not song that taught me love But it was love that taught me song If song be past, and hope undone And pulse, and hеad, and heart, are flame; It is thy work, thou faithlеss one! But, no!—I will not name thy name! Sun-god, lute, wreath are vowed to thee! Long be their light upon my grave— My glorious grave—yon deep blue sea: I shall sleep calm beneath its wave! —————— Florence! with what idolatry I 've lingered in thy radiant halls Worshipping, till my dizzy eye Grew dim with gazing on those walls Where Time had spared each glorious gift By Genius unto Memory left! And when seen by the pale moonlight More pure, more perfect, though less bright What dreams of song flashed on my brain Till each shade seemed to live again; And then the beautiful, the grand The glorious of my native land In every flower that threw its veil Aside, when wooed by the spring gale; In every vineyard, where the sun His task of summer ripening done Shone on their clusters, and a song Came lightly from the peasant throng;— In the dim loveliness of night In fountains with their diamond light In aged temple, ruined shrine And its green wreath of ivy twine;— In every change of earth and sky Breathed the deep soul of poesy As yet I loved not;—but each wild High thought I nourished raised a pyre For love to light; and lighted once By love, it would be like the fire The burning lava floods that dwell In Etna's cave unquenchable One evening in the lovely June Over the Arno's waters gliding I had been watching the fair moon Amid her court of white clouds riding;— I had been listening to the gale Which wafted music from around (For scarce a lover, at that hour But waked his mandolin's light sound),— And odour was upon the breeze Sweet thefts from rose and lemon trees They stole me from my lulling dream And said they knew that such an hour Had ever influence on my soul And raised my sweetest minstrel power I took my lute,—my eye had been Wandering round the lovely scene Filled with those melancholy tears Which come when all most bright appears And hold their strange and secret power Even on pleasure's golden hour I had been looking on the river Half-marvelling to think that ever Wind, wave, or sky, could darken where All seemed so gentle and so fair: And mingled with these thoughts there came A tale, just one that Memory keeps— Forgotten music, still some chance Vibrate the chord whereon it sleeps!