But see, the shepherds shun the noon-day neat,
The lowing herds to murmuring brooks retreat,
To closer shades the panting flocks remove.
Ye gods! and is there no relief for love?
But soon the sun with milder rays descends
To the cool ocean, where his journey ends:
On me Love's fiercer flames for ever prey,
By night he scorches, as he burns by day.

AUTUMN.

THE THIRD PASTORAL; OR, HYLAS AND EGON.

To Mr. Wycherley.

BENEATH the shade a spreading beech displays,
Hylas and Ægon sang their rural lays :
This mourn'd a faithless, that an absent love;
And Delia's name and Doris' fill'd the grove.
Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succours bring;
Hylas' and Egon's rural lays I sing.

Thou, whom the Nine with Plautus' wit inspire,
The art of Terence and Menander's fire;
Whose sense instructs us, and whose humour charms
Whose judgment sways us, and whose spirit warms
Oh! skill'd in nature! see the hearts of swains
Their artless passions, and their tender pains.

Now setting Phoebus shone screnely bright, And fleecy clouds were streak'd with purple light; When tuneful Hylas, with melodious moan, Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away To Delia's ear the tender notes convey. As some sad turtle his lost love deplores, And with deep murmurs fills the sounding shores; Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn, Alike unheard, unpitied, and forlorn.

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!
For her, the feather'd quires neglect their song:
For her, the limes their pleasing shades deny :
For her the lilies hang their heads and die.
Ye flowers that droop, forsaken by the spring,
Ye birds, that left by summer cease to sing,
Ye trees that fade when autumn heats remove,
Say, is not absence death to those who love?

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away!
Cursed be the fields that cause my Delia's stay;
Fade every blossom, wither every tree,
Die every flower, and perish all, but she;
What have I said? Where'er my Delia flies,
Let spring attend, and sudden flowers arise!
Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn,
And liquid amber drop from every thorn.

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!
The birds shall cease to tune their evening song,
The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move,
And streams to murmur, ere I cease to love.
Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain,
Not balmy sleep to labourers faint with pain,
Not showers to larks, or sunshine to the bee,
Are half so charming as thy sight to me.

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! Come, Delia, come; ah, why this long delay? Through rocks and caves the name of Delia sound Delia, cach cave and echoing rock rebounds.

Ye powers, what pleasing frenzy soothes my mind Do lovers dream, or is my Delia kind?

She comes, my Delia comes! Now cease my lay, And cease, ye gales, to bear my sighs away!

Next Egon sang, while Windsor groves admired Rehearse, ye muses, what yourselves inspired.

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain! Of perjured Doris, dying I complain :

Here where the mountains, lessening as they rise, Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies;

While labouring oxen, spent with toil and heat,
In their loose traces from the field retreat;
While curling smokes from village tops are seen,
And the fleet shades glide o'er the dusky green.

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!
Beneath yon poplar oft we pass'd the day:
Oft on the rind I carved her amorous vows,
While she with garlands hung the bending boughs;
The garlands fade, the vows are worn away:
So dies my love, and so my hopes decay.

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain! Now bright Arcturus glads the teeming grain; Now golden fruits on loaded branches shine, And grateful clusters swell with floods of wine; Now blushing berries paint the yellow grove. Just gods! shall all things yield returns but love?

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay; The shepherds cry, 'Thy flocks are left a prey.' Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preserved my sheep? Pan came, and ask'd, what magic caused my smart, Or what ill eyes malignant glances dart? What eyes but hers, alas, have power to move? And is there magic but what dwells in love?

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains! I'll fly from shepherds, flocks, and flowery plains. From shepherds, flocks, and plains, I may remove, Forsake mankind, and all the world but love; I know thee, Love! on foreign mountains bred; Wolves gave thee suck, and savage tigers fed: Thou wert from Etna's burning entrails torn, Hot by fierce whirlwinds, and in thunder born.

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! Farewell, ye woods; adieu, the light of day; One leap from yonder cliff shall end my pains. No more, ye hills, no more resound my strains.

Thus sang the shepherds till the approach of night The skies yet blushing with departed light,

When falling dews with spangles deck the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd every shade.

WINTER.

THE FOURTH PASTORAL; OR, DAPIINE

To the Memory of Mrs. Tempest.

LYCIDAS.

THYRSIS, the music of that murmuring spring Is not so mournful as the strains you sing: Nor rivers winding through the vales below, So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow. Now sleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie, The moon, serene in glory, mounts the sky, While silent birds forget their tuneful lays, O sing of Daphne's fate, and Daphne's praise! THYRSIS.

Behold the groves that shine with silver frost,
Their beauty wither'd, and their verdure lost:
Here shall I try the sweet Alexis' strain,
That call'd the listening Dryads to the plain:
Thames heard the numbers as he flow'd along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.
LYCIDAS.

So may kind rains their vital moisture yield, And swell the future harvest of the field. Begin; this charge the dying Daphne gave, And said, 'Ye shepherds, sing around my grave? Sing, while beside the shaded tomb I mourn And with fresh bays her rural shrine adorn.

THYRSIS.

Ye gentle muses, leave your chrystal spring, Let nymphs and sylvans cypress garlands bring. Ye weeping Loves, the stream with myrtles hide, And break your bows as when Adonis died;

And with your golden darts, now useless grown,
Inscribe a verse on this relenting stone;
'Let Nature change, let heaven and earth deplore;
Fair Daphne's dead, and love is now no more!'

'Tis done, and Nature's various charms decay:
See gloomy clouds obscure the cheerful day.
Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear,
Their faded honours scatter'd on her bier.
See where, on earth, the flowery glories lie;
With her they flourish'd, and with her they die.
Ah! what avail the beauties nature wore;
Fair Daphne's dead, and beauty is no more!

For her the flocks refuse their verdant food; The thirsty heifers shun the gliding flood: The silver swans her hapless fate bemoan, In notes more sad than when they sing their own: In hollow caves sweet Echo silent lies,

Silent, or only to her name replies:

Her name with pleasure once she taught the shore:
Now Daphne's dead, and pleasure is no more!

No grateful dews descend from evening skies,
Nor morning odours from the flowers arise;
No rich perfumes refresh the fruitful field,
Nor fragrant herbs their native incense yield.
The balmy Zephyrs, silent since her death,
Lament the ceasing of a sweeter breath;
The industrious bees neglect their golden store :
Fair Daphne's dead, and sweetness is no more!

No more the mounting larks, while Daphne sings. Shall, listening in mid air, suspend their wings; No more the birds shall imitate her lays, Or, hush'd with wonder, hearken from the sprays No more the streams their murmurs shall forbear. A sweeter music than their own to hear; But tell the reeds, and tell the vocal shore, Fair Daphne's dead, and music is no more!

Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze, And told in sighs to all the trembling trees ;