See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!

No more the rising Sun1 shall gild the morn,
Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd his word, his saving pow'r remains ;-
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns!
1 ch. Ix. 19, 20.
2 ch. li. 6; liv. 10.

IMITATIONS.

"The fields shall grow yellow with ripen'd ears, and the red grape shall hang upon the wild brambles, and the hard oaks shall distill honey like dew.'

Isaiah, ch. xxxv. 7.-'The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: In the habitations where dragons lay, shall be grass, and reeds, and rushes.' Ch. Iv. 13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the firtree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree.' P.

Ver. 77. The lambs with wolves, etc.]

Virg. E. iv. v. 21.

'Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capellæ
Ubera, nec magnos metuent armenta leones-
Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni
Occidet.'-

"The goats shall bear to the fold their udders distended with milk; nor shall the herds be afraid of the greatest lions. The serpent shall die, and the herb that conceals poison shall die.'

Isaiah, ch. xi. 6, etc.-'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them.-And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the den of the cockatrice.' P.

Ver. 85. Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!] The thoughts of Isaiah, which compose the latter part of the poem, are wonderfully elevated, and much above those general exclamations of Virgil, which make the loftiest parts of his Pollio.

'Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo!
-toto surget gens aurea mundo!
-incipient magni procedere menses!
Aspice, venturo lætentur ut omnia sæclo!' etc.

The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah, here cited. P. [Cited at bottom of text.]

WINDSOR-FOREST.

To the Right Honourable
GEORGE, Lord LANSDOWN'.

Non injussa cano: Te nostræ, Vare, myricæ,

Te Nemus omne canet; nec Phobo gratior ulla est

Quam sibi quæ Vari præscripsit pagina nomen. VIRG. [Ecl. VI. 10-12.]

[The design of this poem is universally allowed to have been derived from Denham's Cooper's Hill, the first specimen in English literature of what Johnson denominates 'local poetry.' As a descriptive poem, Windsor Forest has the merits both of dignity and of variety; though the sense of the picturesque is a discovery which had dawned neither upon the age nor upon the individual genius of Pope. Perhaps the most ambitious passage, in which the river Thames is introduced and personified, is only a weak imitation of greater models. As proceeding from an inhabitant of the immediate neighbourhood of Windsor Castle, the treatment of the historical associations connected with it is remarkably loose and incomplete. Otway's Windsor Castle, though in execution infinitely inferior to Pope's, is superior to the latter in the unity of its conception, which is that of a threnody on the recent death of Charles II., naturally suggested by the royal abode.]

This poem was written at two different times: the first part of it, which relates to the country, in the year 1704, at the same time with the Pastorals: the latter part was not added till the year 1713, in which it was published. P. [The division is at line 289.]

1 [See note to p. 15.1

HY forests, Windsor! and thy green retreats,

At once the Monarch's and the Muse's seats,
Invite my lays. Be present, sylvan maids!
Unlock your springs, and open all your shades.
GRANVILLE Commands; your aid, O Muses, bring!
What Muse for GRANVILLE can refuse to sing?
The Groves of Eden, vanish'd now so long,
Live in description, and look green in song:
These, were my breast inspir'd with equal flame,
Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.
Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again;
Not Chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd,
But, as the world, harmoniously confus'd:
Where order in variety we see,

And where, tho' all things differ, all agree.
Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day;
As some coy nymph her lover's warm address
Nor quite indulges, nor can quite repress.
There, interspers'd in lawns and op'ning glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each other's shades.
Here in full light the russet plains extend:
There wrapt in clouds the blueish1 hills ascend.
Ev'n the wild heath displays her purple dyes,
And 'midst the desert fruitful fields arise,
That crown'd with tufted trees and springing corn,
Like verdant isles the sable waste adorn.
Let India boast her plants, nor envy we
The weeping amber or the balmy tree,
While by our oaks the precious loads are born,
And realms commanded which those trees adorn.
Not proud Olympus2 yields a nobler sight,
Tho' Gods assembled grace his tow'ring height,
Than what more humble mountains offer here,
Where, in their blessings, all those Gods appear.
See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crown'd,
Here blushing Flora paints th' enamel'd ground3,
Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand,
And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand;
Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,
And peace and plenty tell, a STUART reigns.
Not thus the land appear'd in ages past,

A dreary desert, and a gloomy waste,
To savage beasts and savage laws a prey,
And kings more furious and severe than they;
Warburton.
3 [A tautology.1

1 blueish. [The word has the authority of both Shakspere and Dryden.]

Not proud Olympus, etc.] Sir J. Denham, in his Cooper's Hill had said,

"Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears,
But Atlas only, which supports the spheres.'
The comparison is childish, for the story of Atlas
being fabulous, leaves no room for a compliment.

4 [The Forest Laws. 'Amabat rex,' says the Saxon chronicle quoted by Thierry, 'ferus feras tanquam esset pater carum.']

[The allusion, after a compliment to the Stuarts, to laws which a Stuart attempted in part to revive, is unintentionally infelicitous.]

Who claim'd the skies, dispeopled air and floods,
The lonely lords of empty wilds and woods:
Cities laid waste, they storm'd the dens and caves,
(For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves:)
What could be free, when lawless beasts obey'd,
And ev'n the elements a tyrant sway'd?

50

In vain kind seasons swell'd the teeming grain,

Soft show'rs distill'd, and suns grew warm in vain;

The swain with tears his frustrate labour yields,

55

And famish'd dies amidst his ripen'd fields.
What wonder then, a bcast or subject slain

Were equal crimes in a despotic reign?
Both doom'd alike, for sportive Tyrants bled,
But while the subject starv'd, the beast was fed.
Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began,
A mighty hunter, and his prey was man:
Our haughty Norman boasts that barb'rous name,
And makes his trembling slaves the royal game.
The fields are ravish'd1 from th' industrious swains,
From men their cities, and from Gods their fanes:
The levell'd towns with weeds lie cover'd o'er;
The hollow winds thro' naked temples roar;
Round broken columns clasping ivy twin'd;
O'er heaps of ruin stalk'd the stately hind;
The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires,
And savage howlings fill the sacred quires.
Aw'd by his Nobles, by his Commons curst,
Th' Oppressor rul'd tyrannic where he durst,
Stretch'd o'er the Poor and Church his iron rod,
And serv'd alike his Vassals and his God.
Whom ev'n the Saxon spar'd and bloody Dane,
The wanton victims of his sport remain.
But see, the man who spacious regions gave
A waste for beasts, himself deny'd a grave2!
Stretch'd on the lawn his second hope3 survey,
At once the chaser, and at once the prey:
Lo Rufus, tugging at the deadly dart,
Bleeds in the Forest like a wounded hart.
Succeeding monarchs heard the subjects' cries,
Nor saw displeas'd the peaceful cottage rise.
Then gath'ring flocks on unknown mountains fed,
O'er sandy wilds were yellow harvests spread,
The forests wonder'd at th' unusual grain,
And secret transport touch'd the conscious swain.

1 The fields are ravish'd, etc.] Alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I. P. [Warton and Bowles have sufficiently pointed out the exaggerated character of this description.]

2 himself deny'd a grave!] The place of his interment at Caen in Normandy was claimed by a gentleman as his inheritance, the moment his servants were going to put him in his tomb: so that they were obliged to compound with the

owner before they could perform the king's obsequies. Warburton.

[The gentleman's name was Asselin; and the story, with additional details, is told from Ordericus Vitalis by Thierry.]

3 [Richard duke of Bernay, said to have been killed by a stag in the New Forest.]

4 The oak under which Rufus was shot was standing till within a few years. Bowles. (1806.)

Fair Liberty, Britannia's Goddess, rears

Her cheerful head, and leads the golden years.

Ye vig'rous swains! while youth ferments your blood,
And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood,

Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset,
Wind the shrill horn, or spread the waving net.
When milder autumn summer's heat succeeds,
And in the new-shorn field the partridge feeds,
Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds,
Panting with hope, he tries the furrow'd grounds;
But when the tainted gales the game betray,
Couch'd close he lies, and meditates the prey:
Secure they trust th' unfaithful field beset,
'Till hov'ring o'er 'em sweeps the swelling net.
Thus (if small things we may with great compare)
When Albion sends her eager sons to war,

Some thoughtless Town, with ease and plenty blest,
Near, and more near, the closing lines invest;
Sudden they seize th' amaz'd, defenceless prize,
And high in air Britannia's standard flies1.

95

ICO

105

ΠΙΟ

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,

And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:
Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,

Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,

115

His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,

The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?
Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,

The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny.
To plains with well-breath'd beagles we repair,
And trace the mazes of the circling hare :
(Beasts, urg'd by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,
And learn of man each other to undo).

With slaught'ring guns th' unwearied fowler roves,
When frosts have whiten'd all the naked groves;
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade,
And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat'ry glade.
He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye;
Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky:
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death:
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fall, and leave their little lives in air.

In genial spring, beneath the quivering shade,
Where cooling vapours breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand,
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand:
With looks unmov'd, he hopes the scaly breed,

[The allusion may be to the capture of Gibraltar, easily effected by Rooke with his sailors and marines in the year (1704) in which the earlier

part of this poem was written.]

120

125

130

135

2 [i. e. well-exercised, cf. "breathed stags.' Shaksp. Taming of the Shrew, Intr.]