The more ardent glow of passion at least cannot be denied to the ancients.

And did not their love find vent in the same expressions as our own?
Who does not know the charming roundelay: "Drink the glad wine with me, With me spend youth's gay hours; Or a sighing lover be, Or crown thy brow with flowers.
When I am merry and mad, Merry and mad be you; When I am sober and sad, Be sad and sober too!" -- written however by no poet of modern days, but by Praxilla, in the fifth century before Christ.

Who would guess either that Moore's little song was modelled on one written even earlier than the date of our story?
"As o'er her loom the Lesbian maid In love-sick languor hung her head.
Unknowing where her fingers stray'd, She weeping turned away and said,' Oh, my sweet mother, 'tis in vain, I cannot weave as once I wove; So wilder'd is my heart and brain With thinking of that youth I love.'" If my space allowed I could add much more on this subject, but will permit myself only one remark in conclusion.

Lovers delighted in nature then as now; the moon was their chosen confidante, and I know of no modern poem in which the mysterious charm of a summer night and the magic beauty which lies on flowers, trees and fountains in those silent hours when the world is asleep, is more exquisitely described than in the following verses, also by Sappho, at the reading of which we seem forced to breathe more slowly, "kuhl bis an's Herz hinan." "Planets, that around the beauteous moon Attendant wait, cast into shade Their ineffectual lustres, soon As she, in full-orb'd majesty array'd, Her silver radiance pours Upon this world of ours." and:-- "Thro' orchard plots with fragrance crown'd, The clear cold fountain murm'ring flows; And forest leaves, with rustling sound, Invite to soft repose." The foregoing remarks seemed to me due to those who consider a love such as that of Sappho and Bartja to have been impossible among the ancients.
Unquestionably it was much rarer then than in these days: indeed I confess to having sketched my pair of lovers in somewhat bright colors.
But may I not be allowed, at least once, to claim the poet's freedom?
How seldom I have availed myself of this freedom will be evident from the notes included in each volume.

They seemed to me necessary, partly in order to explain the names and illustrate the circumstances mentioned in the text, and partly to vindicate the writer in the eyes of the learned.