Sappho's Death Poem by Peter John Allan

Who is she, from whose haggard eyes
The deadly lightning of passion flies?
She stands upon the Leucadian height,
Gazing, entranced, on the starry night.
Her face, all pale and worn with tears,
Has the look of that age that comes not with years,
But is born of the aching heart within;
Woman's pure heart, defiled by sin,
And all the hopes of youth lie crushed
Where passion's lava-tide hath rushed.
She stands alone and silent there;
From her brow of light the loosen'd hair
In wavy gold sweeps far behind,
On the ebon wings of the midnight wind.
Like an eagle, 'reft of her glorious young,
She stands, the Pythoness of song,
Beneath the caves of ocean thrill
With ominous oracles of ill;
And the mystic orb of Hecate
Smiles strangely on the troubled sea;
She strikes the lyre, whose voice had pow'r
To charm her soul in pleasure's hour,
When smiling eyes and flow'rets bright
Shed o'er her life a magic light;
The dirge of innocence and truth
Its sounds recal [sic]the dreams of youth,
And dims her hot and flashing eyes,
And give her heart relief in sighs.
The fleeting dream of love is past,
Her eyes are o'er the ocean cast;
Its murmurs greet her from beneath,
And seem the sweet low voice of death,
That bids her heart its 'plaining cease,
And speaks of an eternal peace;
For in the bosom of the grave,
Encircled by the em'rald wave;
Her Phaon's form seems gliding by
With cold contempt in lip and eye;
His voice is ringing in her ears-
Phaon alone she sees and hears.
To the brink of that fearful precipice
She is drawn by a hand, and that hand is his.
One frantic leap-a moment more,
And Sappho's woes are o'er.