Oh deign to visit our forsaken seats,
The mossy fountains, and the green retreats!
Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade;
Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade;
Where'er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise,
And all things flourish where you turn your eyes1.
Oh how I long with you to pass my days,
Invoke the Muses, and resound your praise!
Your praise the birds shall chant in ev'ry grove 2,
And winds shall waft it to the pow'rs above,
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain,
The wond'ring forests soon should dance again;
The moving mountains hear the pow'rful call,
And headlong streams hang list'ning in their fall!
But see, the shepherds shun the noonday heat,
The lowing herds to murm'ring brooks retreat,
To closer shades the panting flocks remove;
Ye Gods! and is there no relief for Love?
But soon the sun with milder rays descends
To the cool ocean, where his journey ends.
On me love's fiercer flames for ever prey,
By night he scorches, as he burns by day.
ENEATH the shade a spreading Beech displays,
Hylas and Ægon sung their rural lays,
This mourn'd a faithless, that an absent Love;
And Delia's name and Doris' fill'd the Grove.
1 Very much like some lines in Hudibras, but certainly no resemblance was intended.
2 Your praise the tuneful birds to heav'n shall bear,
And list'ning wolves grow milder as they hear.
So the verses were originally written. But the author, young as he was, soon found the absurdity which Spenser himself overlooked, of introducing wolves into England. P. [e. g. in Sheph. Kal. July.]
Where'er you tread, your feet shall set The primrose and the violet; Nature her charter shall renew, And take all lives of things from you. Bowles. [The familiar original of the familiar idea is of course in Persius 11. 38.]
3 This Pastoral consists of two parts, like the viiith of Virgil: the Scene, a Hill; the Time, at Sun-set. P.
Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring;
Hylas and Ægon's rural lays I sing.
Thou, whom the Nine1 with Plautus' wit inspire,
The art of Terence, and Menander's fire2;
Whose sense instructs us, and whose humour charms,
Whose judgment sways us, and whose spirit warms!
Oh, skill'd in Nature! see the hearts of Swains,
Their artless passions, and their tender pains.
Now setting Phoebus shone serenely bright,
And fleecy clouds were streak'd 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, unpity'd, and forlorn.
Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!
For her, the feather'd quires neglect their song;
For her, the limes their pleasing shades deny;
For her, the lilies hang their heads and die.
Ye flow'rs that droop, forsaken by the spring,
Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing,
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!
Curs'd be the fields that cause my Delia's stay;
Fade ev'ry blossom, wither ev'ry tree,
Die ev'ry flow'r, 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,
And liquid amber drop from ev'ry thorn.
Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!
The birds shall cease to tune their ev'ning song,
Thou, whom the Nine] Mr Wycherley, a famous author of comedies; of which the most celebrated were the Plain-dealer and CountryWife. He was a writer of 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. P.
[William Wycherley (born 1640, died 1715) was in the 64th year of his age at the time when he was thus addressed by Pope. In the following year Wycherley submitted his poems to the correction of his youthful friend; but the 'honest freedom' with which the latter exercised his office of censor, produced a coolness between the pair which prevented a renewal of friendly intercourse. The judgments of Pope's and Wycherley's biographers as to the amount of blame to be respectively attached to their heroes, vary considerably.]
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2 The art of Terence, and Menander's fire;] This line evidently alludes to that famous character given of Terence, by Cæsar, Tu quoque, tu in summis, & dimidiate Menander, Pomeris, et merito, puri sermonis amator; Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis Comica.
So that the judicious critic sees he should have said-with Menander's fire. For what the poet meant, in this line, was, that his friend had joined to Terence's art what Cæsar thought wanting in Terence, namely the vis comica of Menander. Besides,-and Menander's fire is making that the characteristic of Menander which was not. His character was the having art and comic spirit in perfect conjunction, of which Terence having only the first, he is called the half of Menander. Warburton.
The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move,
And streams to murmur, e'er1 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 sun-shine 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?
Thro' rocks and caves the name of Delia sounds,
Delia, each cave and echoing rock rebounds.
Ye pow'rs, what pleasing frenzy sooths 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!
Next Egon sung, while Windsor groves admir'd;
Rehearse, ye Muses, what yourselves inspir'd.
Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!
Of perjur'd 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.
Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!
Beneath yon' poplar oft we past the day:
Oft' on the rind I carv'd her am'rous 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.
Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!
Now bright Arcturus glads the teeming grain,
Now golden fruits on loaded branches shine,
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 preserv'd my sheep.
Pan came, and ask'd, what magic caus'd 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.—
[Pope's spelling of e'er, which Warton and subsequent editors have altered into ere, was probably due to a reminiscence of the phrase or e'er, incorrectly spelt by Shakspere or ere, made up of or, a corruption of ere (=ær, before) and é'er, an abbreviation of ever.]
2 And grateful clusters etc. The scene is in
Windsor-forest. So this image is not so exact.
[The grapes are doubtful; but Mr Jesse mentions, in his Summer's Day at Windsor, that what are now called the Slopes, extending into the Home Park, are in Norden's Map (1607) described as 'the Deanes Orcharde' &c.]
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 whirlwinds, 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 th' approach of night,
The skies yet blushing with departing light 1,
When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade,
And the low sun had lengthen'd ev'ry shade.
To the Memory of Mrs. TEMPEST3.
HYRSIS, the music of that murm'ring spring,
Is not so mournful as the strains you sing.
Nor rivers winding thro' 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!
There is a little inaccuracy here; the first line makes the time after sunset; the second, before. Warburton.
2 This was the poet's favourite pastoral. Warburton.
3 Mrs Tempest.] 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 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. P. [Walsh's elegy is that entitled 'Delia;' an insignificant piece.]
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 list'ning Dryads to the plain?
Thames heard the numbers as he flow'd along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.
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,
And with fresh bays her rural shrine adorn."
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;
And with your golden darts, now useless grown,
Inscribe a verse on this relenting stone:
"Let nature change, let heav'n 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 dropping trees appear,
Their faded honours scatter'd on her bier.
See, where on earth the flow'ry glories lie,
With her they flourish'd, 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 Echo1 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 breath2;
Th' industrious bees neglect their golden store;
Fair Daphne's dead, and sweetness is no more!
This expression of sweet Echo is taken from
Comus; as is another expression, loose traces,
Third Past. v. 62.'
2 'I wish that his fondness had not overlooked a line in which the zephyrs are made to lament in silence.' Johnson.
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