YE

E Nymphs of Solyma1! begin the song:
To heav'nly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and th' Aonian maids,
Delight no more-0 thou my voice inspire
Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the Bard begun:
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son!
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flow'r with fragrance fills the skies:
Th' Ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic Dove.
Ye Heav'ns3! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly show'r!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.

All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;

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Peace o'er the World her olive wand extend,
And white-rob'd Innocence from heav'n descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise th' expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,
See nodding forests on the mountains dance:
See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
And Carmel's flow'ry top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers;
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears :
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim th' approaching Deity.
Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down ye mountains, and ye valleys rise,
With heads declin'd, ye cedars homage pay;
Be smooth ye rocks, ye rapid floods give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold:
Hear him, ye deaf, and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray1",
And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day:
'Tis he th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur the wide world shall hear,
From ev'ry face he wipes off ev'ry tear.

In adamantinell chains shall Death be bound, And Hell's grim Tyrant feel th' eternal wound. [Hierosolyma, Jerusalem.]

2 Isa. xi. 1.

4 ch. xxv. 4.

3 ch. xlv. 8.

5 ancient fraud] i.e. the fraud of the Serpent Warburton. 6 ch. ix. 7. 8 ch. xl. 3, 4.

7 ch. xxxv. 2.

9 ch. xlii. 18; xxxv. 5, 6.

10 He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,] The sense and language shew, that, by visual ray, the poet meant the sight, or, as Milton calls it, the visual nerve. Warburton. 11 ch. xxv. 8.

As the good shepherd1 tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air,
Explores the lost, the wand'ring sheep directs,
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects,
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,

Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms;
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promis'd father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriours meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a plough-share end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful Son1
Shall finish what his short-liv'd Sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,

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And the same hand that sow'd, shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts5 with surprise

See lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;

And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murm'ring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,

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The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.

Waste sandy valleys, once perplex'd with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn:

To leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed,

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And od'rous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,

See heav'n its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!

No more the rising Sun1 shall gild the morn,
Nor ev'ning Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd his word, his saving pow'r remains ;-
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns!
ch. lx. 19, 20.
2 ch. li. 6; liv. 10.

IMITATIONS.

"The fields shall grow yellow with ripen'd ears, and the red grape shall hang upon the wild brambles, and the hard oaks shall distill honey like dew.'

Isaiah, ch. xxxv. 7.-"The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: In the habitations where dragons lay, shall be grass, and reeds, and rushes.' Ch. Iv. 13.-'Instead of the thorn shall come up the firtree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree.' P..

Ver. 77. The lambs with wolves, etc.]
Virg. E. iv. v. 21.

'Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capellæ
Ubera, nec magnos metuent armenta leones-
Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni
Occidet.'-

'The goats shall bear to the fold their udders distended with milk; nor shall the herds be afraid of the greatest lions. The serpent shall die, and the herb that conceals poison shall die.'

Isaiah, ch. xi. 6, etc.-'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them.-And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the den of the cockatrice.' P.

Ver. 85. Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!] The thoughts of Isaiah, which compose the latter part of the poem, are wonderfully elevated, and much above those general exclamations of Virgil, which make the loftiest parts of his Pollio.

'Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo!
-toto surget gens aurea mundo!
-incipient magni procedere menses!
Aspice, venturo lætentur ut omnia sæclo!' etc.

The reader needs only to turn to the passages of Isaiah, here cited. P. [Cited at bottom of text.]

WINDSOR-FOREST.

To the Right Honourable
GEORGE, Lord LANSDOWN'.

Non injussa cano: Te nostræ, Vare, myricæ,

Te Nemus omne canet; nec Phœbo gratior ulla est

Quam sibi quæ Vari præscripsit pagina nomen. VIRG. [Ecl. VI. 10-12.]

[The design of this poem is universally allowed to have been derived from Denham's Cooper's Hill, the first specimen in English literature of what Johnson denominates 'local poetry.' As a descriptive poem, Windsor Forest has the merits both of dignity and of variety; though the sense of the picturesque is a discovery which had dawned neither upon the age nor upon the individual genius of Pope. Perhaps the most ambitious passage, in which the river Thames is introduced and personified, is only a weak imitation of greater models. As proceeding from an inhabitant of the immediate neighbourhood of Windsor Castle, the treatment of the historical associations connected with it is remarkably loose and incomplete. Otway's Windsor Castle, though in execution infinitely inferior to Pope's, is superior to the latter in the unity of its conception, which is that of a threnody on the recent death of Charles II., naturally suggested by the royal abode.]

This poem was written at two different times: the first part of it, which relates to the country, in the year 1704, at the same time with the Pastorals: the latter part was not added till the year 1713, in which it was published. P. [The division is at line 289.]

1 [See note to p. 15.]

HY forests, Windsor! and thy green retreats,

THY

At once the Monarch's and the Muse's seats,
Invite my lays. Be present, sylvan maids!
Unlock your springs, and open all your shades.
GRANVILLE commands; your aid, O Muses, bring!
What Muse for GRANVILLE can refuse to sing?
The Groves of Eden, vanish'd now so long,
Live in description, and look green in song:
These, were my breast inspir'd with equal flame,
Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.
Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again;
Not Chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd,
But, as the world, harmoniously confus'd:
Where order in variety we see,

And where, tho' all things differ, all agree.
Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day;
As some coy nymph her lover's warm address
Nor quite indulges, nor can quite repress.
There, interspers'd in lawns and op'ning glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each other's shades.
Here in full light the russet plains extend:
There wrapt in clouds the blueish1 hills ascend.
Ev'n the wild heath displays her purple dyes,
And 'midst the desert fruitful fields arise,

That crown'd with tufted trees and springing corn,
Like verdant isles the sable waste adorn.
Let India boast her plants, nor envy we
The weeping amber or the balmy tree,

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While by our oaks the precious loads are born,
And realms commanded which those trees adorn.
Not proud Olympus yields a nobler sight,
Tho' Gods assembled grace his tow'ring height,
Than what more humble mountains offer here,
Where, in their blessings, all those Gods appear.
See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crown'd,
Here blushing Flora paints th' enamel'd ground3,
Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand,
And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand;
Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,
And peace and plenty tell, a STUART reigns.
Not thus the land appear'd in ages past,

A dreary desert, and a gloomy waste,
To savage beasts and savage laws a prey,
And kings more furious and severe than they;
Warburton.

1 blueish. [The word has the authority of both Shakspere and Dryden.]

2 Not proud Olympus, etc.] Sir J. Denham, in his Cooper's Hill had said,

'Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears, But Atlas only, which supports the spheres.' The comparison is childish, for the story of Atlas being fabulous, leaves no room for a compliment.

3 [A tautology.]

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4 [The Forest Laws. 'Amabat rex,' says the Saxon chronicle quoted by Thierry, 'ferus feras tanquam esset pater earum.']

[The allusion, after a compliment to the Stuarts, to laws which a Stuart attempted in part to revive, is unintentionally infelicitous.]