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BENEATH the shade a spreading beech displays,
Hylas and Egon sung their rural lays,

This mourned a faithless, that an absent love,
And Delia's name and Doris' filled the grove.
Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring;
Hylas and Ægon's rural lays I sing.

Thou, whom the Nine, with Plautus' wit inspire," The art of Terence and Menander's fire;

Whose sense instruct us, and whose humour charms,
Whose judgment sways us, and whose spirit warms!
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 groan,
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.

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,

1 This pastoral consists of two parts, like the 8th of Virgil; the scene, a hill; the time, at sunset.--Pope.

2 Mr. Wycherley, a famous author of comedies; of which the most celebrated were the "Plain Dealer" and " Country Wife." He was a writer or 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 correctness. -Pope.

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 cause my Delia's stay;
Fade ev'ry blossom, wither ev'ry tree,
Die ev'ry flower, and perish all, but she.
What have I said? where'er my Delia flies,
Let spring attend, and sudden flow'rs arise;
Let op'ning roses knotted oaks adorn,1
And liquid amber drop from ev'ry thorn.

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Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! The birds shall cease to tune their ev'ning 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 lab'rers faint with pain, Not show'rs 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 ?3

She comes, my Delia comes!-Now cease my lay,
And cease, ye gales, to bear my sighs away!

Next Egon 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, where the mountains less'ning as they rise
Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies:
While lab'ring 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.

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Mala ferant puercus, narcisso floreat alnus,
Pinguia corticibus sudent electra myricæ."-Pope.

2 Virg. Ecl. V.:

66

Quale sopor fessis ingramine, quale per æstum
"Dulcis aquæ saliente sitim restinguere rivo."-Pope.

3 Virg. Ecl. V.:

"An qui amant, ipsi sibi somnia fingunt?"

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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 pow'r 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 flow'ry 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 whirldwinds, 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 ev'ry shade.

1 An allusion to the superstition of the evil eye. Virg. Ecl. III.:

Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos."-Pope.

WINTER.

THE FOURTH PASTORAL; OR, DAPHNE.

TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST.1

LYCIDAS.

THYRSIS, the music of that murm'ring 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,
Oh sing of Daphne's fate, and Daphne's praise.

THYRSIS.

Behold the groves that shine with silver frost,
Their beauty withered, and their verdure lost!
Here shall I try the sweet Alexis' strain,'

That called the list'ning Dryads to the plain?
Thames heard3 the numbers as he flowed along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.

1 This lady was of an ancient family in Yorkshire, and particularly admired by the authors 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 midnight.-Pope.

Miss Tempest-it was the fashion in Pope's time to call young ladies "Mrs."-was the daughter of Henry Tempest, of Newton Grange, York. She died unmarried.

2 He alludes to a poem of Congreve's. called the "Mourning Muse of Alexis," a pastoral lamenting the death of Queen Mary (William III's wife).

3 Virg. Ecl. VI. :

"Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros."

*One of the most terrible storms on record. Several ships of war were utterly wrecked, and more mischief done than was ever known before or since.

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,
Fair Daphne's dead, and love is now no more!"
'Tis done, and nature's various charms decay,
See gloomy clouds obscure the cheerful day!
Now hung with pearls the drooping trees appear,
Their faded honours scattered on her bier.
See, where on earth the flow'ry glories lie,
With her they flourished, and with her they die.
Ah what avail the beauties nature wore?
Fair Daphne's dead, and beauty is no more!
For her the flocks refuse their verdant food,
Nor thirsty heifers seek the gliding flood,
The silver swans her hapless fate bemoan,
In notes more sad than when they sing their own;
In hollow caves sweet echo silent lies,

Silent, or only to her name replies;

Her name with pleasure once she taught the shore,
Now Daphne's dead, and pleasure is no more!

No grateful dews descend from ev'ning skies,
Nor morning odours from the flow'rs arise;
No rich perfumes refresh the fruitful field,
Nor fragrant herbs their native incense yield.
The balmy zephyrs, silent since her death,
Lament the ceasing of a sweeter breath;

Th' industrious bees neglect their golded store;
Fair Daphne's dead, and sweetness is no more!

1 Virg. Ecl. V.:

"Inducite fontibus umbras-
Et tumulum facite, et tumulo superaddite carmen."-Pope,

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