When swains from shearing seek their nightly bowers,
When weary reapers quit the sultry field,
And crowned with corn their thanks to Ceres yield.
This harmless grove no lurking viper hides,
But in my breast the serpent love abides.
Here bees from blossoms sip the rosy dew,
Alexis knows no sweets but you.
But your
Oh, deign to visit our forsaken seats,
The mossy fountains, and the green retreats!
Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade;
Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade;
Where'er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise,
And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.
Oh! how I long with you to pass my days,
Invoke the muses, and resound your praise!
Your praise the birds shall chant in every grove,1
And winds shall waft it to the powers above,
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain,
The wondering forests soon should dance again;
The moving mountains hear the powerful call,
And headlong streams hang listening in their fall!
But see, the shepherds shun the noonday heat,
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.
1 Your praise the tuneful birds to heaven shall bear,
And listening wolves grow milder as they hear.
So the verses were originally written. But the author, young as he was, soon found the absurdity which Spenser himself overlooked, of introducing wolves into England.
THE THIRD PASTORAL; OR, HYLAS AND EGON:
BENEATH the shade a spreading beech displays,
Hylas and Ægon sung their rural lays,
This mourned a faithless, that an absent love,
And Delia's name and Dorris' filled the grove.
Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring;
Hylas and Ægon's rural lays I sing.
Thou, whom the Nine2 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! 10 Oh, skilled in nature! see the hearts of swains,
Their artless passions, and their tender pains.
Now setting Phoebus shone serenely bright,
And fleecy clouds were streaked with purple light;
When tuneful Hylas with melodious moan,
Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains
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.
1 This pastoral consists of two parts, like the 8th of Virgil; the scene, a hill; the time, at sunset.
2 Mr. Wycherley, a famous author of comedies; of which the most celebrated were the Plain Dealer and Country Wife. He was a writer of infinite spirit, satire, and wit. The only objection made to him was that he had too much. However he was followed in the same way by Mr. Congreve; though with a little more correct
Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!
For her, the feathered choirs 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 caused 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, nor 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 sounds,
Delia, each 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 Ægon sung, while Windsor groves admired;
Rehearse, ye muses, what yourselves inspired.
Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!
Of perjured Doris, dying I complain :
Here were 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 passed 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 her 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 asked, 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,
Got 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 sung the shepherds till the approach of night, The skies yet blushing with departing light,
When falling dews with spangles decked the glade,
And the low sun had lengthened every shade.
THE FOURTH PASTORAL; OR, DAPHNE.
TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST.1
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.
This lady was of an ancient family in Yorkshire, and particularly admired by the author's friend, Mr. Walsh, who, having celebrated her in a pastoral elegy, desired his friend to do the same, as appears from one of his letters, dated Sept. 9, 1706: "Your last eclogue being on the same subject with mine on Mrs. Tempest's death, I should take it very kindly in you to give it a little turn as if it were to the memory of the same lady." Her death having happened on the night of the great storm in 1703, gave a propriety to this eclogue, which in its general turn alludes to it. The scene of the pastoral lies in a grove, the time at mid
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