When falling dews with spangles deck the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd every shade. WINTER. THE FOURTH PASTORAL; OR, DAPHN 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 Begin; this charge the dying Daphne gave, 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, In notes more sad than when they sing their own: Her name with pleasure once she taught the shore: No grateful dews descend from evening skies, No more the mounting larks, while Daphne sings Or, hush'd with wonder, hearken from the sprays: The trembling trees, in every plain and wood, The silver flood, so lately calm, appears Swell'd with new passion, and o'erflows with tears; The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore. Daphne our grief, our glory now no more! But see! where Daphne wondering mounts on high Above the clouds, above the starry sky! Eternal beauties grace the shining scene, Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green! There, while you rest in amaranthine bowers, Or from those meads select unfading flowers, Behold us kindly, who your name implore, Daphne, our goddess, and our grief no more! LYCIDAS. How all things listen, while thy muse complains! Such silence waits on Philomela's strains, In some still evening, when the whispering breeze Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees. To thee, bright goddess, oft a lamb shall bleed, If teeming ewes increase my fleecy breed. While plants their shade, or flowers their odours give, Thy name, thy honour, and thy praise, shall live! THYRSIS. But see! Orion sheds unwholesome dews; Time conquers all, and we must Time obey. MESSIAH. A sacred Eclogue in Imitation of Virgil's Pollu. ADVERTISEMENT. n reading several passages of the prophet Isaiah, which foretell the coming of Christ, and the felicities attending it, I could not but observe a remarkable parity he tween many of the thoughts, and those in the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising when we re flect, that the eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line for line; but selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry, and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his piece. I have endeavoured the same in this imitation of him, though without admitting any thing of my own; since it was written with this par ticular view, that the reader by comparing the several thoughts, might see how far the images and descriptious of the prophet are superior to those of the poet. YE nymphs of Solyma! begin the song: Rapt into future times, the bard begun : And on its top descends the mystic dove. 15 (1) Isa xi. ver 1. (2) Ch. xlv. ver 8. (3) Ch. xxv Per. 4. All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fəż; Returning Justice' lift aloft her scale; Peace o'er the world her olive wand, extend, 25 30 35 And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. 20 40 (2) Ch. xxxv. ver. 2. (3) Ch. xl. xliii. ver. 18 and ch. xxxv.ver. 5, 6 (6) Ch. xi. ver. 11. |