Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn,

And liquid amber drop from every thorn.

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!

38

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 laborers faint with pain,
Not showers to larks, nor sunshine to the bee, 45
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. 50 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!'

44 Not balmy sleep.

Quale sopor fessis.-Virg.

Warton attributes this passage to Drummond of Hawthornden's picturesque lines :

To virgins flowers, to sun-burnt earth the rain,

To mariners fair winds amid the main,

Cool shades to pilgrims, whom hot glances burn,
Are not so pleasing as thy blest return.

Milton's noble lines, concluding with

Nor glittering starlight without thee is sweet,

contain the same idea; but expressed, as it could be expressed only, by the golden flow of Milton.

Next Egon sung, while Windsor groves ad

mired:

Rehearse, ye Muses, what yourselves inspired.

55

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!

Of perjured Doris dying I complain;

Here, where the mountains, lessening as they rise,

60

Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies;
While laboring 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.

66

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 her love, and so my hopes decay.

70

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: 75
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.

81

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!

85

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; 91
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; 95
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 deck'd the glade,

And the low sun had lengthen'd every shade. 100

97 Thus sung. To this poem Warton appends a note in praise of the pastorals of Fairfax, whose verse is almost Shakspearian; and Bowles adds Browne's pastorals, from which even Milton did not disdain to borrow.

WINTER:

THE FOURTH PASTORAL,

OR

DAPHNE.

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.

5

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 September 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, midnight.-P.

1 Thyrsis, the music. 'Adú TI, &c. Theoc. Id. i.

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! 10 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.

16

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.

20

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

13 Thames heard. Audiit Eurotas,' &c.-Virg.

22 Cypress garlands bring. Bowles quotes the pretty ballad from The Maid's Tragedy :'

Lay a garland on my brow

Of the dismal yew.

Maidens, willow branches bear;

Say, I died true.

My love was false, but I was true,

From my hour of birth:

Upon my buried body lie

Softly, gentle earth.

23 The stream with myrtles hide. Inducite fontibus umbras.'

-Virg.