Accept this boon, 'tis all my present store ; To-morrow will produce as many more.
Mean while these heart-confuming pains remove, And give me gentle pity for my love.
Oh was I made by fome transforming power A bee to buzz in your fequefter'd bower!
To pierce your ivy fhade with murmuring found, And the light leaves that compafs you around. I know thee, love, and to my forrow find, A god thou art, but of the favage kind; A lionefs fure fuckled the fell child,
And with his brothers nurst him in the wild;
On me his fcorching flames inceffant prey, Glow in my bones, and melt my foul away.
Ah, nymph, whose eyes destructive glances dart, Fair is your face, but flinty is your heart : With kiffes kind this rage of love appease ; For me, fond Swain ! ev'n empty kisses please. Your fcorn diftracts me, and will make me tear The flow'ry crown I wove for you to wear, Where rofes mingle with the ivy-wreath, And fragrant herbs ambrofial odours breathe, Ah me! what pangs I feel, and yet the fair Nor fees my forrows, nor will hear my prayer. I'll doff my garments, fince I needs muft die, And from yon rock, that points its fummit high, Where patient Alpis fnares the finny fry, I'll leap, and though perchance I rise again, You'll laugh to fee me plunging in the main. By a prophetic poppy-leaf I found
Your chang'd affection, for it gave no found Though in my hand struck hollow as it lay, But quickly wither'd like your love away. An old witch brought fad tiding to my ears, She who tells fortunes with the fieve and fheers;
For leafing barley in my fields of late,
She told me, I fhould love, and you fhould hate!
For you my care a milk white goat fupply'd, Two wanton kids run frisking at her fide; Which oft the nut-brown maid, Erithacis,
Has beg'd, and paid before-hand with a kiss; And fince you thus my ardent paflion flight, Her's they shall be before to-morrow night.
My right eye itches; may it lucky prove, Perhaps I foon fhall fee the nymph I love; Beneath yon pine I'll fing diftinct and clear, Perhaps the fair my tender notes may hear; Perhaps may pity my melodious moan; She is not metamorphos'd into ftone. Hippomenes, provok'd by noble ftrife, To win a mistress, or to lose his life, Threw golden fruit in Atalanta's way, The bright temptation caus'd the nymph to stay ; She look'd, the languish'd, all her foul took fire, She plung'd into the gulph of deep defire.
To Pyle from Othry's fage Melampus came, He drove the lowing herd, yet won the dame Fair Pero bleft his brother Bias" arms, And in a virtuous race diffus'd unfading charms. Adonis fed his cattle on the plain,
And fea-born Venus lov'd the rural fwain She mourn'd him wounded in the fatal chace, Nor dead difmifs'd him from her warm embrace. Though young Endymion was by Cynthia bleft, I envy nothing but his lafting reft. Jafion flumb'ring on the Cretan plain Ceres once faw, and bleft the happy fwain With pleasures too divine for ears profane. My head grows giddy, love affects me fore Yet you regard not; fo I'll fing no more- Here will I put a period to my care- Adieu, falfe nymph, adieu ungrateful fair: Stretch'd near the grotto, when I've breath'd My corfe will give the wolves a rich repaft, As fweet to them, as honey to your taste.
Virgil fucceeds Theocritus, from whom he has in fome places copied, and always imitated with fuccefs. As a fpecimen of his manner we shall introduce his first Pastoral, which is generally allowed to be the most perfect; and our readers will fee that we are obliged to Mr. Dryden for the tranflation,
Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse, You, Tityrus, entertain your fylvan muse.
Round the wide world in banishment we roam, Forc'd from our pleasing fields and native home; While ftretch'd at eafe you fing your happy loves, And Amaryllis fills the fhady groves.
Thefe bleffings, friend, a Deity bestow'd ; For never can I deem him less than God. The tender firflings of my woolly breed Shall on his holy altar often bleed.
He gave me kine to graze the flow'ry plain, And fo my pipe renew'd the rural ftrain.
MELIB O EU S.
I envy not your fortune, but admire, That while the raging fword and wasteful fire Deftroy the wretched neighbourhood around, No hoftile arms approach your happy ground. Far diff'rent is my fate, my feeble goats With pains I drive from their forfaken cotes: And this you fee I fcarcely drag along, Who yeaning on the rocks has left her young, The hope and promise of my falling fold, My lofs by dire portents the Gods foretold; For, had I not been blind, I might have seen Yon riven oak, the faireft on the green, And the hoarfe raven on the blafted bough By croaking from the left prefag'd the coming blow. But tell me, Tityrus, what heav'nly power Preferv'd your fortunes in that fatal hour?
Fool that I was, I thought imperial Rome Like Mantua, where on market-days we come : And thither drive our tender lambs from home. So kids and whelps their fires and dams exprefs; And fo the great I meafur'd by the lefs: But country-towns, compar'd with her, appear Like fhrubs when lofty cypreffes are near.
MELI BOE US.
What great occasion call'd you hence to Rome?
Freedom, which came at length, tho' flow to come:
Nor did my fearch of liberty begin
Till my black hairs were chang'd upon my chin. Nor Amaryllis would vouchsafe a look, Till Galatea's meaner bonds I broke.
Till then a helpless, hopeless, homely fwain, I fought not freedom, nor afpir'd to gain: Tho' many a victim from my folds was bought, And many a cheese to country markets brought, Yet all the little that I got I spent, And ftill return'd as empty as I went.
We stood amaz'd to see your mistress mourn, Unknowing that the pin'd for your return; We wonder'd why fhe kept her fruit fo long, For whom fo late th' ungather'd apples hang: But now the wonder ceafes, fince I fee She kept them only, Tityrus, for the:
For thee the bubbling fprings appear'd to mourn, And whifp'ring pines made vows for thy return.
What should I do? while here I was enchain'd, No glimpse of godlike liberty remain'd; Nor could I hope in any place but there To find a God fo prefent to my pray'r. There first the youth of heav'nly birth I view'd, For whom our monthly victims are renew'd. He heard my vows, and graciously decreed My grounds to be reftor'd, my former flocks to feed.
O fortunate old man! whose farm remains For you fufficient, and requites your pains, Tho' rufhes overspread the neighb'ring plains, Tho' here the marshy grounds approach your fields And there the foil a ftony harvest yields.
Your teeming ewes fhall no ftrange meadows try, Nor fear a rot from tainted company.
Behold yon bord'ring fence of fallow trees
Is fraught with flow'rs, the flow'rs are fraught with bees:
The bufy bees, with a foft murm'ring ftrain, Invite to gentle fleep the lab'ring fwain : While from the neighb'ring rock with rural fongs The pruner's voice the pleafing dream prolongs; Stock-doves and turtles tell their am'rous pain, And, from the lofty elms, of love complain..
Th' inhabitants of feas and fkies fhall change, And fish on shore, and ftags in air fhall range, The banish'd Parthian dwell on Arar's brink, And the blue German fhall the Tigris drink; Ere I, forfaking gratitude and truth, Forget the figure of that godlike youth.
But we must beg our bread in climes unknown, Beneath the scorching or the freezing zone ; And fome to fair Oaxis fhall be fold, Or try the Lybian heat, or Scythian cold; The reft among the Britons be confin'd, A race of men from all the world disjoin'd. O! muft the wretched exiles ever mourn? Nor after length of rolling years return? Are we condemn'd by fate's unjust decree, No more our houfes and our homes to fee? Or fhall we mount again the rural throne, And rule the country, kingdoms once our own? Did we for these barbarians plant and sow, On thefe, on thefe, our happy fields bestow? Good heav'n, what dire effects from civil difcord flow Now let me graft my pears, and prune
the vine ; The fruit is theirs, the labour only mine. Farewel my pastures, my paternal stock, My fruitful fields, and my more fruitful flock! No more, my goats, shall I behold
you climb The steepy cliffs, or crop the flow'ry thyme; No more extended in the grot below, Shall fee you browzing on the mountain's brow, The prickly fhrubs, and after on the bare Lean down the deep abyfs and hang in air! No more my theep fhall fip the morning dew; No more my fong fhall please the rural crew: Adieu, my tuneful pipe! and all the world adieu!
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