Here as I lay, and swelled with tears the flood,
Before my sight a watery virgin stood:
She stood and cried, ‘O you that love in vain,
Fly hence, and seek the fair Leucadian main!
There stands a rock, from whose impending steep
Apollo’s fane surveys the rolling deep;
There injured lovers, leaping from above,
Their flames extinguish and forget to love.
Hence, Sappho, haste! from high Leucadia throw
Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below.’