1

Lo Rufus, tugging at the deadly dart,
Bleeds in the forest like a wounded hart.1
Succeeding monarchs heard the subjects' cries,
Nor saw displeased the peaceful cottage rise.
Then gath'ring flocks on unknown mountains fed,
O'er sandy wilds were yellow harvests spread;
The forests wondered at th' unusual grain,
And secret transport touched the conscious swain.
Fair Liberty, Britannia's goddess, rears

Her cheerful head, and leads the golden years."
Ye vig'rous swains! while youth ferments your
blood,

And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood,
Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset,
Wind the shrill horn, or spread the waving net.
When milder autumn summer's heat succeeds,3
And in the new-shorn field the partridge feeds;
Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds,
Panting with hope, he tries the furrowed grounds;
But when the tainted gales the game betray,
Couched close he lies, and meditates the prey:
Secure they trust th' unfaithful field beset,
Till hov'ring o'er them sweeps the swelling net.
Thus (if small things we may with great compare)
When Albion sends her eager sons to war,
Some thoughtless town, with ease and plenty blest,
Near, and more near, the closing lines invest;
Sudden they seize th' amazed, defenceless prize,
And high in air Britannia's standard flies.

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:
Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,

His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,

1 Rufus was accidently slain in the New Forest, which his father had so wickedly formed, by his favourite Sir Walter Tyrrel. The spot where he fell is now marked by a stone.

2 Originally :

O may no more a foreign master's rage

With wrongs, yet legal, curse a future age.

Still spread, fair Liberty, thy heav'nly wings,

Breathe pleuty on the field and fragrance on the springs.-Pope.

3 Originally:

When yellow autumn summer's near succeeds,

And into wine the purple harvest bleeds,

The partridge feeding in the new-shorn fields,

Both morning sports and evening pleasure yields.—Pope.

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The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold ?
Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,1
The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny.
To plains with well-breathed beagles we repair,
And trace the mazes of the circling hare:
(Beasts, urged by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,
And learn of man each other to undo).

With slaughtering guns th' unwearied fowler roves,
When frosts have whitened all the naked groves;
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade,
And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat'ry glade.
He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye;"
Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky:
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death:
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fall, and leave their little lives in air.

In genial spring, beneath the quiv'ring shade,
Where cooling vapours breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand,
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand:
With looks unmoved, he hopes the scaly breed,
And eyes the dancing cork, and bending reed.
Our plenteous streams a various race supply,
The bright eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye.
The silver eel, in shining volumes rolled,
The yellow carp in scales bedropped with gold,
Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains,
And pikes, the tyrants of the watery plains.

Now Cancer glows with Phoebus' fiery car;"
The youth rush eager to the sylvan war,
Swarm o'er the lawns, the forest walks surround,
Rouse the fleet hart, and cheer the opening hound.
Th' impatient courser pants in ev'ry vein,
And, pawing, seems to beat the distant plain.
Hills, vales, and floods appear already crossed,
And ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost.

1 Originally thus:

When hoary winter clothes the years in white,
The woods and fields to pleasing toils invite.-Pope.
2 The fowler lifts his levelled tube on high.-Pope.
Originally thus:

But when bright Phoebus from the Twins invites
Our active genius to more free delights,

With springing day we range the lawns around.-Pope,

See the bold youth strain up the threat'ning steep,
Rush through the thickets, down the valleys sweep,
Hang o'er their coursers' heads with eager speed,
And earth rolls back beneath the flying steed.
Let old Arcadia boast her ample plain,

Th' immortal huntress, and her virgin train;1
Nor envy, Windsor! since thy shades have seen
As bright a goddess, and as chaste a queen;"
Whose care, like hers, protects the sylvan reign,
The earth's fair light, and empress of the main.
Here too, 'tis sung, of old Diana strayed,
And Cynthus' top forsook for Windsor shade:
Here was she seen o'er airy wastes to rove,
Seek the clear spring, or haunt the pathless grove;
Here armed with silver bows, in early dawn,
Her buskined virgins traced the dewy lawn.
Above the rest a rural nymph was famed,
Thy offspring, Thames! the fair Lodona named;
(Lodona's fate, in long oblivion cast,

The muse shall sing, and what she sings shall last).
Scarce could the goddess from her nymph be known,
But by the crescent and the golden zone,
She scorned the praise of beauty, and the care;
A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair;
A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,
And with her dart the flying deer she wounds.
It chanced, as eager of the chase, the maid
Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed,
Pan saw and loved, and, burning with desire,
Pursued her flight, her flight increased his fire.
Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly,
When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;
Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,
When through the clouds he drives the trembling
doves,

As from the god she flew with furious расе,
Or as the god, more furious, urged the chase.
Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears;
Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears;
And now his shadow reached her as she run,

His shadow lengthened by the setting sun;

And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,

1 Diana.

2 Queen Anne, who was fond of hunting.

For ever murmurs, and forever weeps;
Still bears the name1 the hapless virgin bore,
And bathes the forest where she ranged before,
In her chaste current oft the goddess laves,
And with celestial tears augments the waves.
Oft in her glass the musing shepherd spies
The headlong mountains and the downward skies,
The watʼry landscape of the pendant woods,
And absent trees that tremble in the floods;
In the clear azure gleam the flocks are seen,
And floating forests paint the waves with green,
Through the fair scene roll slow the ling'ring streams,
Then foaming pour along, and rush into the Thames.
Thou, too, great father of the British floods!
With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods;
Where tow'ring oaks their growing honours rear,
And future navies on thy shores appear.

Not Neptune's self from all his streams receives
A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives.
No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear.
Nor Po so swells the fabling poet's lays,
While led along the skies his current strays,
As thine, which visits Windsor's famed abodes,
To grace the mansion of our earthly gods:
Nor all his stars above a lustre show,
Like the bright beauties on thy banks below,
Where Jove, subdued by mortal passion still,
Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.

Happy the man3 whom this bright court approves,

1 The river Loddon--Pope.

2 These six lines were added after the first writing of this poem.Pope.

3 Originally:

Happy the man who to these shades retires,
But doubly happy if the Muse inspires!

His sovereign favours, and his country loves :'
Happy next him, who to these shades retires,
Whom nature charms, and whom the muse inspires:
Whom humbler joys of home-felt quiet please,
Successive study, exercise, and ease.

He gathers health from herbs the forest yields,
And of their fragrant physic spoils the fields:
With chemic arts exalts the min'ral pow'rs,
And draws the aromatic souls of flow'rs:
Now marks the course of rolling orbs on high;
O'er figured worlds now travels with his eye;
Of ancient writ unlocks the learned store,
Consults the dead, and lives past ages o'er :
Or wand'ring thoughtful in the silent wood,
Attends the duties of the wise and good,
T'observe a mean, be to himself a friend,
To follow nature, and regard his end.

Or looks on heav'n with more than mortal eyes,
Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,
Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,
Survey the region, and confess her home!
Such was the life great Scipio once admired,
Thus Atticus, and Trumbull, thus retired.

Ye sacred Nine! that all my soul possess,
Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless,
Bear me, O bear me to sequestered scenes,
The bow'ry mazes, and surrounding greens:
To Thames's banks which fragrant breezes fill,
Or where ye Muses sport on Cooper's Hill."
(On Cooper's Hill eternal wreaths shall grow,
While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow).
I seem through consecrated walks to rove,
I hear soft music die along the grove:

Led by the sound, I roam from shade to shade,
By god-like poets venerable made:

Here his first lays majestic Denham sung;3

Blest whom the sweets of homefelt quiet please :
But far more blest, who study joins with ease.-Pope.

1 Lord Lansdowne.

2 Cooper's Hill is near Egham and Runnymede. Sir John Denham wrote a poem on it.

3 Sir John Denham was praised as a poet by Dryden also. He wrote "Cooper's Hill." He was born in Dublin, where his father was Chief Baron of the Exchequer. He was brought very young to England, and was educated at Oxford. He died 1668.