Alien of birth, usurper of the plains! Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Manalian strains. "Relentless love the cruel mother led, The blood of her unhappy babes to shed: Love lent the sword; the mother struck the blow; Inhuman she, but more inhuman thou: "Old doting Nature, change thy course anew; And let the trembling lamb the wolf pursue. And hooting owls contend with swans in skill; Hoarse Tityrus strive with Orpheus in the woods, And challenge fam'd Arion on the floods. stram. Or, oh, let Nature cease, and Chaos reign! Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian [tido "Let earth be sea, and let the whelming The lifeless limbs of luckless Damon hide : Farewell, ye secret woods and shady groves, Haunts of my youth, and conscious of my loves! From yon high cliff I plunge into the main : Now take your turns, ye Muses, to rehearse His friend's complaints, and mighty magic verse. "Bring running water; bind those altars round With fillets, and with vervain strew the ground: Make fat with frankincense the sacred fires, To reinflame my Daphnis with desires. 'Tis done we want but verse.-Restore, my charms, My ling'ring Daphnis to my longing arms. "Pale Phoebe, drawn by verse, from heav'n descends; And Circe chang'd with charms Ulysses' friends. Verse breaks the ground, and penetrates the brake, And in the winding cavern splits the snake. Verse fires the frozen veins.-Restore, my charms, My ling'ring Daphnis to my longing arms. "Around his waxen image first I wind Three woollen fillets, of three colours join'd; Thrice bind about his thrice devoted head, Which round the sacred altar thrice is led. Unequal numbers please the gods.-My charms, Restore my Daphnis to my longing arms. "Knit with three knots the fillets: knit them strait; Then say, These knots to love I consecrate.' Haste, Amaryllis, haste!-Restore, my charms, My lovely Daphnis to my longing arms, "As fire this figure hardens, made of clay, And this of wax with fire consumes away; Such let the soul of cruel Daphnis beHard to the rest of women, soft to me. Crumble the sacred mole of salt and corn: Next in the fire the bays with brimstone burn: And, while it crackles in the sulphur, say, "'Tis I for Daphnis burn; thus Daphnis burn away! This laurel is his fate.'-Restore, my charms, My lovely Daphnis to my longing arms. "As when the raging heifer, through the (The noblest and the best of all the baneful kind) Old Maris brought me from the Pontic strand, And from the roots to tear the standing corn, My ling'ring Daphnis to my longing arms. "Bear out these ashes: cast them in the brook ; Cast backwards o'er your head; nor turn your look: Since neither gods nor godlike verse can move, Break out, ye smother'd fires, and kindle smother'd love. Exert your utmost pow'r, my ling'ring charms; And force my Daphnis to my longing arms. "See, while my last endeavours I delay, The waking ashes rise, and round our altars play! Run to the threshold, Amaryllis-hark! Our Hylax opens, and begins to bark. Good heav'n! may lovers what they wish believe? [ceive? Or dream their wishes, and those dreams deNo more! my Daphnis comes! no more, my charms! [arms." He comes, he runs, he leaps, to my desiring PASTORAL IX. OR, LYCIDAS AND MORIS. ARGUMENT. When Virgil, by the favour of Augustus, had recovered his patrimony near Mantua, and went in hope to take possession, he was in danger to be slain by Arius the centurion, to whom those lands were assigned by the emperor, in reward of his service against Brutus and Cassius. This pastoral therefore is filled with complaints of this hard usage; and the persons introduced are the bailiff of Virgil, Maris, and his friend Lycidas. LYCIDAS. Ho, Moris! whither on thy way so fast? This leads to town. MERIS. O Lycidas! at last The time is come, I never thought to see, (Strange revolutions for my farm and me!) When the grim captain in a surly tone Cries out, "Pack up, ye rascals, and be gone." Kick'd out, we set the best face on't we could, And these two kids, t' appease his angry mood, I bear, of which the Furies give him good! LYCIDAS. Your country friends were told another taleTha: from the sloping mountain to the vale, And dodder'd oak, and all the banks along, Menalcas sav'd his fortune with a song. MERIS. Such was the news, indeed; but songs and rhymes Prevail as much in these hard iron times, LYCIDAS. Now heaven defend! could barbarous rage induce [Muse? he brutal son of Mars t' insult the sacred Sing on, The rest I have forgot, for cares and time LYCIDAS. Thy faint excuses but inflame me more: As if thy tuneful song they did attend: Here, where the lab'rer's hands have form'd a bow'r Of wreathing trees, in singing waste an hour. MORIS. Cease to request me; let us mind our way: PASTORAL X. OR, GALLUS. ARGUMENT. Gallus, a great patron of Virgil, and an excellent poet, was very deeply in love with one Cytheris, whom he calls Lycoris, and who had forsaken him for the company of a soldier. The poet therefore supposes his friend Gallus retired, in his height of melancholy, into the solitudes of Arcadia, (the celebrated scene of pastorals,) where he represents him in a very languishing condition, with all the rural deities about him, pitying his hard usage, and condoling his misfortune. THY sacred succour, Arethusa, bring, What lawns or woods withheld you from lis aid, Ye nymphs, when Gallus was to love betray'd, Menalian pines the godlike swain bemoan, "Is she thy care? is she thy care?" he cries, "Thy false Lycoris flies thy love and thee, And for thy rival tempts the raging sea, The forms of horrid war, and heav'n's inclemency." Silvanus came: his brows a country crown Of fennel, and of nodding lilies, drown. Great Pan arriv'd, and we beheld him too, His cheeks and temples of vermilion hue. "Why, Gallus, this immod'rate grief?" he cried. "Think'st thou that love with tears is satisfied? The meads are sooner drunk with morning dews, The bees with flow'ry shrubs, the goats with browse." Unmov'd, and with dejected eyes, he mourn'd: He paus'd, and then these broken words re turn'd: "Tis past; and pity gives me no relief: To pen the sheep, and press the swelling vine. Beneath the sallows and the shady vine, And soft Amyntas sung away my care. As you are beauteous, were you half so true, Here could I live, and love, and die with only you. Now I to fighting fields am sent afar, snow. Ye frosts and snows, her tender body spare! Those are not limbs for icicles to tear. For me, the wilds and deserts are my choice; The Muses once my care, my once harmonious voice. There will I sing, forsaken and alone: The rocks and hollow caves shall echo to my moan. The rind of ev'ry plant her name shall know; race; Nor cold shall hinder me, with horns and hounds As if with sports my sufferings I should ease, Love alters not for us his hard decrees, Or Italy's indulgent heav'n forego, And in mid-winter tread Sithonian snow; On Meroe's burning plains the Libyan sheep. From juniper unwholsome dews distil, kill. Away, my goats, away! for you have brows'd your fill. GEORGIC I. ARGUMENT. GEORGICS. The poet, in the beginning of this book, propounds the general design of each Georgic and, after a solemn invocation of all the gods who are any way related to his subject, he addresses himself in particular to Augustus, whom he compliments with divinity; and after strikes into his business. He shows the different kinds of tillage proper to different soils, traces out the orignal of agriculture, gives a catalogue of the husbandman's tools, spe cifies the employments peculiar to each season, describes the changes of the weather, with the signs in heaven and earth that forebode them; instances many of the prodigies that happened near the time of Julius Cæsar's death; and shuts up all with a supplication to the gods for the safety of Augustus, and the preservation of Rome. WHAT makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn; The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine; Ye deities! who fields and plains protect, Join in my work, and to my numbers bring Your needful succour; for your gifts I sing. And thou, whose trident struck the teeming earth, And made a passage for the courser's birth; And thou, for whom the Cean shore sustains Thou founder of the plough and ploughman's toil: E'en in this early dawning of the year, And bursts the crowded barns with more than And thou, whose hands the shroud-like cy- But, ere we stir the yet unbroken ground, press rear; Come, all ye gods and goddesses, that wear Or o'er the fruits and seasons to preside, treat, Though Proserpine affects her silent seat, While yet the spring is young, while earth unbinds Her frozen bosom to the western winds; The various course of seasons must be found; And what the genius of the soil denies. That other loads the trees with happy fruits: (In hopes of palms) a race of running steeds. turn; That, while the turf lies open and unbound, The surface, and but lightly print the share, stood, And stalks of lupines grew (a stubborn wood,} |