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? She comes, my Delia comes! Now cease my lay, And cease, ye gales, to bear my sighs away! Next Ægon sang, 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, lessening as they rise, Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies; While labouring 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 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. 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 preserved my sheep? Pan came, and ask'd, what magic caused my smart, Or what ill eyes malignant glances dart? 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! I'll fly from shepherds, flocks, and flowery 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, Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! Thus sang the shepherds till th' approach of night, The skies yet blushing with departed light, When falling dews with spangles deck the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd every shade. WINTER. THE FOURTH PASTORAL; OR DAPΗΝΕ. LYCIDAS. THYRSIS, the music of that murmuring spring THYRSIS. Behold the groves that shine with silver frost, LYCIDAS. So may kind rains their vital moisture yield, THYRSIS. Ye gentle muses, leave your crystal spring, 'Let Nature change, let heaven and earth deplore; No grateful dews descend from evening skies, Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze, And told in sighs to all the trembling trees; The trembling trees, in every plain and wood, Her fate remurmur to the silver flood; The silver flood, so lately calm, appears Swell'd with new passion, and o'erflows with tears: The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore. Daphne our grief, our glory now no more! But see! where Daphne wondering mounts on high, Above the clouds, above the starry sky! Eternal beauties grace the shining scene, Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green ! There, while you rest in amaranthine bowers, Or from those meads select unfading flowers, Behold us kindly, who your name implore, Daphne, our goddess, and our grief no more! LYCIDAS. How all things listen, while thy muse complains! THYRSIS. But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews. Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Sharp Boreas blows, and Nature feels decay, Time conquers all, and we must Time obey. Adieu, ye vales, ye mountains, streams, and groves; Adieu, ye shepherds' rural lays and loves; Adien, my flocks; farewell, ye sylvan crew; Daphne, farewell! and all the world, adieu ! MESSIAH. A sacred Eclogue, in Imitation of Virgil's Pollio. ADVERTISEMENT. In reading several passages of the prophet Isaiah, which foretel the coming of Christ, and the felicities attending it, I could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts, and those in the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising, when we reflect, that the eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line for line; but selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry, and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his piece. I have endeavoured the same in this imitation of him, though without admitting any thing of my own; since it was written with this particular view, that the reader, by comparing the several thoughts, might see how far the images and descriptions of the prophet are superior to those of the poet. But as I fear I have prejudiced them by my management, I shall subjoin the passages of Isaiah, and those of Virgil, under the same disadvantage of a literal translation. YE nymphs of Solyma! begin the song: To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong. 5 Rapt into future times, the bard begun: IMITATIONS. Ver. 8. A Virgin shall conceive-All crimes shall cease, &c.] Virg. Ecl. iv. ver. 6. Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna, Te duce, si qua maneant sceleris vestigia nostri, 'Now the virgin returns, now the kingdom of Saturn returns, now a new progeny is sent down from high heaven, By means of thee, whatever reliques of our crimes remain, shall be wiped away, and free the world from perpetual fears. He shall govern the earth in peace, with the virtues of his father.' Isaiah, ch. vii. ver. 14.- Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. Chap. ix. ver. 6, 7.-Unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given the Prince of Peace of the increase of his government, and of his peace, there shall be no end: upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order and to establish it, with judgment and with justice, for ever and ever." |