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, '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, 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; 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 Now bright Arcturus glads the teeming grain! 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: Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! 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 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, 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, 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. |