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Who claim'd the skies, dispeopled air and floods,
The lonely lords of empty wilds and woods:
Cities laid waste, they storm'd the dens and caves,
(For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves:)
What could be free, when lawless beasts obey'd,
And ev'n the elements a tyrant sway'd?
In vain kind seasons swell'd the teeming grain,

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Soft show'rs distill'd, and suns grew warm in vain;

The swain with tears his frustrate labour yields,

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And famish'd dies amidst his ripen'd fields.
What wonder then, a beast or subject slain

Were equal crimes in a despotic_reign?
Both doom'd alike, for sportive Tyrants bled,
But while the subject starv'd, the beast was fed.
Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began,
A mighty hunter, and his prey was man:
Our haughty Norman boasts that barb'rous name,
And makes his trembling slaves the royal game.
The fields are ravish'd1 from th' industrious swains,
From men their cities, and from Gods their fanes:
The levell'd towns with weeds lie cover'd o'er;
The hollow winds thro' naked temples roar;
Round broken columns clasping ivy twin'd;
O'er heaps of ruin stalk'd the stately hind;
The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires,
And savage howlings fill the sacred quires.
Aw'd by his Nobles, by his Commons curst,
Th' Oppressor rul'd tyrannic where he durst,
Stretch'd o'er the Poor and Church his iron rod,
And serv'd alike his Vassals and his God.
Whom ev'n the Saxon spar'd and bloody Dane,
The wanton victims of his sport remain.
But see, the man who spacious regions gave
A waste for beasts, himself deny'd a grave2!
Stretch'd on the lawn his second hope survey,
At once the chaser, and at once the prey:
Lo Rufus, tugging at the deadly dart,
Bleeds in the Forest like a wounded hart.
Succeeding monarchs heard the subjects' cries,
Nor saw displeas'd the peaceful cottage rise.
Then gath'ring flocks on unknown mountains fed,
O'er sandy wilds were yellow harvests spread,
The forests wonder'd at th' unusual grain,
And secret transport touch'd the conscious swain.

The fields are ravish'd, etc.] Alluding to the destruction made in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I. P. [Warton and Bowles have sufficiently pointed out the exaggerated character of this description.]

2 himself deny'd a grave!] The place of his interment at Caen in Normandy was claimed by a gentleman as his inheritance, the moment his servants were going to put him in his tomb: so that they were obliged to compound with the

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owner before they could perform the king's obsequies. Warburton.

[The gentleman's name was Asselin; and the story, with additional details, is told from Ordericus Vitalis by Thierry.]

3 [Richard duke of Bernay, said to have been killed by a stag in the New Forest.]

4 The oak under which Rufus was shot was standing till within a few years. Bowles. (1806.)

Fair Liberty, Britannia's Goddess, rears

Her cheerful head, and leads the golden years.

And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood,

Ye vig'rous swains! while youth ferments your blood,

Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset,
Wind the shrill horn, or spread the waving net.
When milder autumn summer's heat succeeds,
And in the new-shorn field the partridge feeds,
Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds,
Panting with hope, he tries the furrow'd grounds;
But when the tainted gales the game betray,
Couch'd close he lies, and meditates the prey:
Secure they trust th' unfaithful field beset,
'Till hov'ring o'er 'em sweeps the swelling net.
Thus (if small things we may with great compare)
When Albion sends her eager sons to war,

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Some thoughtless Town, with ease and plenty blest,
Near, and more near, the closing lines invest;
Sudden they seize th' amaz'd, defenceless prize,
And high in air Britannia's standard flies1.

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See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,

And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:

Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,

Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.

Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,

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His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,

The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?
Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,
The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny.
To plains with well-breath'd beagles we repair,
And trace the mazes of the circling hare:
(Beasts, urg'd by us, their fellow-beasts pursue,
And learn of man each other to undo).
With slaught'ring guns th' unwearied fowler roves,
When frosts have whiten'd all the naked groves;
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade,
And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat'ry glade.
He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye;
Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky:
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath,
The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death:
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare,
They fall, and leave their little lives in air.

In genial spring, beneath the quivering shade,
Where cooling vapours breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand,
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand:
With looks unmov'd, he hopes the scaly breed,

I [The allusion may be to the capture of Gibraltar, easily effected by Rooke with his sailors and marines in the year (1704) in which the earlier

part of this poem was written.]

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2 [i. e. well-exercised, cf. 'breathed stags.' Shaksp. Taming of the Shrew, Intr.]

And eyes the dancing cork, and bending reed.
Our plenteous streams a various race supply,
The bright-ey'd perch with fins of Tyrian dye.
The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd,
The yellow carp, in scales bedropp'd with gold,
Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains,
And pikes, the tyrants of the wat'ry plains.
Now Cancer glows with Phoebus' fiery car:
The youth rush eager to the sylvan war,
Swarm o'er the lawns, the forest walks surround,

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Rouse the fleet hart, and cheer the opening hound.
Th' impatient courser pants in every vein,
And, pawing, seems to beat the distant plain:
Hills, vales, and floods appear already cross'd,
And ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost.

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See the bold youth strain up the threat'ning steep,
Rush thro' the thickets, down the valleys sweep,
Hang o'er their coursers' heads with eager speed,
And earth rolls back beneath the flying steed.
Let old Arcadia boast her ample plain,
Th' immortal huntress, and her virgin train;
Nor envy, Windsor! since thy shades have seen
As bright a Goddess, and as chaste a Queen1;
Whose care, like hers, protects the sylvan reign,
The Earth's fair light, and Empress of the main.
Here too, 'tis sung, of old Diana stray'd,
And Cynthus' top forsook for Windsor shade:
Here was she seen o'er airy wastes to rove,

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Seek the clear spring, or haunt the pathless grove;
Here arm'd with silver bows, in early dawn,

Her buskin'd Virgins trac'd the dewy lawn.
Above the rest a rural nymph was fam'd,

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Thy offspring, Thames! the fair Lodona nam'd;
(Lodona's fate, in long oblivion cast,

The Muse shall sing, and what she sings shall last).

Scarce could the Goddess from her nymph be known,

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But by the crescent and the golden zone.

She scorn'd the praise of beauty, and the care;

A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair;

A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,
And with her dart the flying deer she wounds.
It chanc'd, as eager of the chase, the maid
Beyond the forest's verdant limits stray'd,
Pan saw and lov'd, and, burning with desire,
Pursued her flight; her flight increas'd his fire.
Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly,
When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;
Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,
When thro' the clouds he drives the trembling doves;

1 Queen Anne.

[A statue of this sovereign still standing at Windsor has an inscription conveying the same

measured compliment:

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Annæ vis similem sculpere? Sculpe Deam.]

As from the god she flew with furious pace,
Or as the god, more furious, urg'd the chase.
Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears;
Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears;
And now his shadow reach'd her as she run,
His shadow lengthen'd by the setting sun;
And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,
Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.
In vain on father Thames she calls for aid,
Nor could Diana help her injur'd maid.

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Faint, breathless, thus she pray'd, nor pray'd in vain;
"Ah, Cynthia! ah-tho' banish'd from thy train,
Let me, O let me, to the shades repair,

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My native shades-there weep, and murmur there."

She said, and melting as in tears she lay,
In a soft, silver stream dissolv'd away.
The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps,
For ever murmurs, and for ever weeps;
Still bears the name1 the hapless virgin bore,
And bathes the forest where she rang'd before.
In her chaste current oft the goddess laves,
And with celestial tears augments the waves.
Oft in her glass2 the musing shepherd spies

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The headlong mountains and the downward skies,
The wat'ry landscape of the pendant woods,
And absent trees that tremble in the floods;
In the clear azure gleam the flocks are seen,

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Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.

Not Neptune's self from all her streams receives
A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives.
No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear.
Nor Po so swells the fabling Poet's lays,
While led along the skies his current strays,
As thine, which visits Windsor's fam'd abodes,
To grace the mansion of our earthly Gods:
Nor all his stars above a lustre show,
Like the bright Beauties on thy banks below,
Where Jove, subdued by mortal Passion still,

And floating forests paint the waves with green,
Thro' the fair scene roll slow the lingering streams,
Then foaming pour along, and rush into the Thames.
Thou, too, great father of the British floods!
With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods;
Where tow'ring oaks their growing honours rear,
And future navies on thy shores appear.

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Happy the man whom this bright court approves,
His Sov'reign favours, and his Country loves:
Happy next him, who to these shades retires,
Whom Nature charms, and whom the Muse inspires:

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1 Still bears the name] The river Loddon. Warburton.

2 Oft in her glass, etc.] These six lines were added after the first writing of this poem. P.

Whom humbler joys of home-felt quiet please,
Successive study, exercise, and ease.

He gathers health from herbs the forest yields,
And of their fragrant physic spoils the fields:
With chymic art exalts the min'ral pow'rs,
And draws the aromatic souls of flow'rs:
Now marks the course of rolling orbs on high;
O'er figur'd worlds now travels with his eye;
Of ancient writ unlocks the learned store,
Consults the dead, and lives past ages o'er:
Or wand'ring thoughtful in the silent wood,
Attends the duties of the wise and good,
T'observe a mean, be to himself a friend,
To follow nature, and regard his end;

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Or looks on heav'n with more than mortal eyes,

Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,

Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,

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Survey the region, and confess her home!

Such was the life great Scipio once admir'd:—

Thus Atticus, and Trumbal thus retir'd1.

Ye sacred Nine! that all my soul possess,
Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless,
Bear me, O bear me to sequester'd scenes,
The bow'ry mazes, and surrounding greens:
To Thames's banks, which fragrant breezes fill,
Or where ye Muses sport on Cooper's Hill.

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(On Cooper's Hill eternal wreaths shall grow,

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While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow.)

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