Scarce had he spoke, when through the lawn below On all her days let health and peace attend;
Alone he saw the beauteous Delia go;
At once transported, he forgot his vow,
(Such perjuries the laughing gods allow!)
Down the steep hills with ardent haste he flew ;
He found her kind, and soon believ'd her true.
May she ne'er want, nor ever lose, a friend!
May some new pleasure every hour employ:
But let her Damon be her highest joy!
"With thee, my love, for ever will I stay,
All night caress thee, and admire all day;
In the same field our mingled flocks we'll feed,
To the same spring our thirsty heifers lead,
Together will we share the harvest toils,
Together press the vine's autumnal spoils.
Delightful state, where Peace and Love combine,
To bid our tranquil days unclouded shine!
Here limpid fountains roll through flowery meads;
Here rising forests lift their verdant heads;
Here let me wear my careless life away,
And in thy arms insensibly decay.
"When late old age our heads shall silver o'er
And our slow pulses dance with joy no more;
When Time no longer will thy beauties spare,
And only Damon's eye shall think thee fair;
Then may the gentle hand of welcome Death,
At one soft stroke, deprive us both of breath!
May we beneath one common stone be laid,
And the same cypress both our ashes shade!
Perhaps some friendly Muse, in tender versc
Shall deign our faithful passion to rehearse
And future ages, with just envy mov'd,
Be told how Damon and his Delia lov'd."
POSSESSION.
ECLOGUE IV.
TO LORD COBHAM.
COBHAM, to thee this rural lay I bring,
Whose guiding judgment gives me skill to sing :
Though far unequal to those polish'd strains,
With which thy Congreve charm'd the listening
plains:
Yet shall its music please thy partial ear,
And soothe thy breast with thoughts that once were
dear;
Recall those years which Time has thrown behind,
When smiling Love with Honor shar'd thy mind:
When all thy glorious days of prosperous fight
Delighted less than one successful night.
The sweet remembrance shall thy youth restore,
Fancy again shall run past pleasures o'er;
And, while in Stowe's enchanting walks you stray,
This theme may help to cheat the summer's day.
Beneath the covert of a myrtle wood,
To Venus rais'd, a rustic altar stood.
To Venus and to Hymen, there combin'd,
In friendly league to favor human-kind.
With wanton Cupids, in that happy shade,
The gentle Virtues and mild Wisdom play'd.
Nor there in sprightly Pleasure's genial train,
Lurk'd sick Disgust, or late-repenting Pain,
Nor Force, nor Interest, join'd unwilling hands,
But Love consenting tied the blissful bands.
Thither, with glad devotion, Damon came,
To thank the powers who bless'd his faithful flame:
Two milk-white doves he on their altar laid,
And thus to both his grateful homage paid:
"Hail, bounteous god! before whose hallow'd shrine
My Delia vow'd to be for ever mine,
While, glowing in her cheeks, with tender love,
Sweet virgin-modesty reluctant strove!
And hail to thee, fair queen of young des es!
Long shall my heart preserve thy pleasing fires,
Since Delia now can all its warmth return,
As fondly languish, and as fiercely burn.
"O the dear bloom of last propitious night!
O shade more charming than the fairest light!
Then in my arms I clasp'd the melting maid,
Then all my pains one moment overpaid;
Then first the sweet excess of bliss I prov'd,
Which none can taste but who like me have lov'd.
Thou too, bright goddess, once, in Ida's grove,
Didst not disdain to meet a shepherd's love;
With him, while frisking lambs around you play'd,
Conceal'd you sported in the secret shade:
Scarce could Anchises' raptures equal mine,
And Delia's beauties only yield to thine,
"What are ye now, my once most valued joys?
Insipid trifles all, and childish toys-
Friendship itself ne'er knew a charm like this,
Nor Colin's talk could please like Delia's kiss.
"Ye Muses, skill'd in every winning art,
Teach me more deeply to engage her heart;
Ye nymphs, to her your freshest roses bring.
And crown her with the pride of all the Spring:
TO THE REVEREND DR. AYSCOUGH,
AT OXFORD.
SAY, dearest friend, how roll thy hours away?
What pleasing study cheats the tedious day?
Dost thou the sacred volumes oft explore
Of wise Antiquity's immortal lore,
Where virtue, by the charms of wit refin'd,
At once exalts and polishes the mind?
How different from our modern guilty art,
Which pleases only to corrupt the heart;
Whose curst refinements odious vice adorn,
And teach to honor what we ought to scorn!
Dost thou in sage historians joy to see
How Roman greatness rose with liberty:
How the same hands that tyrants durst control
Their empire stretch'd from Atlas to the Pole;
Till wealth and conquest into slaves refin'd
The proud luxurious masters of mankind?
Dost thou in letter'd Greece each charm admire,
Each grace, each virtue, Freedom could inspire;
Yet in her troubled state see all the woes,
And all the crimes, that giddy faction knows;
Till, rent by parties, by corruption sold,
Or weakly careless, or too rashly bold,
She sunk beneath a mitigated doom,
The slave and tutoress of protecting Rome?
Does calm Philosophy her aid impart,
To guide the passions, and to mend the heart?
Taught by her precepts, hast thou learnt the end
To which alone the wise their studies bend;
For which alone by Nature were design'd
The powers of thought-to benefit mankind?
Not, like a cloister'd drone, to read and doze,
In undeserving, undeserv'd, repose;
But reason's influence to diffuse; to clear
Th' enlighten'd world of every gloomy fear;
Dispel the mists of error, and unbind
Those pedant chains that clog the free-born mind.
Happy who thus his leisure can employ !
He knows the purest hours of tranquil joy;
Nor vext with pangs that busier bosoms tear,
Nor lost to social virtue's pleasing care;
Safe in the port, yet laboring to sustain
Those who still float on the tempestuous main.
So Locke the days of studious quiet spent ;
So Boyle in wisdom found divine content;
So Cambray, worthy of a happier doom,
The virtuous slave of Louis and of Rome.
guide!
O generous warmth! O sanctity divine!
To emulate his worth, my friend, be thine:
Learn from his life the duties of the gown;
Learn, not to flatter, nor insult the crown;
Nor, basely servile, court the guilty great,
Nor raise the church a rival to the state :
To error mild, to vice alone severe,
Seek not to spread the law of love by fear.
The priest who plagues the world can never mend:
No foe to man was e'er to God a friend.
Let reason and let virtue faith maintain;
All force but theirs is impious, weak, and vain.
Me other cares in other climes engage,
Cares that become my birth, and suit my age;
In various knowledge to improve my youth,
And conquer prejudice, worst foe to truth;
By foreign arts domestic faults to mend,
Enlarge my notions, and my views extend;
The useful science of the world to know,
Which books can never teach, or pedants show.
A nation here I pity and admire,
Whom noblest sentiments of glory fire,
Yet taught, by custom's force and bigot fear,
To serve with pride, and boast the yoke they bear:
Whose nobles, born to cringe and to command,
(In courts a mean, in camps a generous band,)
From each low tool of power, content receive
Those laws, their dreaded arms to Europe give.
Whose people (vain in want, in bondage blest;
Though plunder'd, gay; industrious, though opprest)
With happy follies rise above their fate,
The jest and envy of each wiser state.
Good Wor'ster* thus supports his drooping age,
Far from court-flattery, far from party-rage;
He, who in youth a tyrant's frown defied,
Firm and intrepid on his country's side,
Her boldest champion then, and now her mildest Yet oft a tender wish recalls my mind
Yet here the Muses deign'd awhile to sport In the short sun-shine of a favoring court; Here Boileau, strong in sense and sharp in wit, Who, from the ancients, like the ancients writ, Permission gain'd inferior vice to blame, By flattering incense to his master's fame. Here Moliere, first of comic wits, excell'd Whate'er Athenian theatres beheld;
By keen, yet decent, satire skill'd to please,
With morals mirth uniting, strength with ease.
Now, charm'd, I hear the bold Corneille inspire
Heroic thoughts, with Shakspeare's force and fire!
Now sweet Racine, with milder influence, move
The soften'd heart to pity and to love.
With mingled pain and pleasure, I survey
The pompous works of arbitrary sway;
Proud palaces, that drain'd the subjects' store,
Rais'd on the ruins of th' opprest and poor;
Bishop Hough.
Where ev'n mute walls are taught to flatter state,
And painted triumphs style Ambition GREAT.*
With more delight those pleasing shades I view
Where Condé from an envious court withdrew;t
Where, sick of glory, faction, power, and pride,
(Sure judge how empty all, who all had tried!)
Beneath his palms the weary chief repos'd,
And life's great scene in quiet virtue clos'd.
With shame that other fam'd retreat I see.
Adorn'd by art, disgrac'd by luxury:
Where Orleans wasted every vacant hour,
In the wild riot of unbounded power;
Where feverish debauch and impious love
Stain'd the mad table and the guilty grove.
With these amusements is thy friend detain'd,
Pleas'd and instructed in a foreign land;
From present joys to dearer left behind.
O native isle, fair Freedom's happiest seat!
At thought of thee, my bounding pulses beat;
At thought of thee, my heart impatient burns,
And all my country on my soul returns.
When shall I see thy fields, whose plenteous grain
No power can ravish from th' industrious swain?
When kiss, with pious love, the sacred earth
That gave a Burleigh or a Russell birth?
When, in the shade of laws, that long have stood,
Propt by their care, or strengthen'd by their blood
Of fearless independence wisely vain,
The proudest slave of Bourbon's race disdain?
Yet, oh! what doubt, what sad presaging voice,
Whispers within, and bids me not rejoice;
Bids me contemplate every state around,
From sultry Spain to Norway's icy bound;
Bids their lost rights, their ruin'd glory see:
And tells me, "These, like England, once were free!
SONG.
WHEN Delia on the plain appears,
Aw'd by a thousand tender fears,
I would approach, but dare not move:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
Whene'er she speaks, my ravish'd ear
No other voice but hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
If she some other youth commend,
Though I was once his fondest friend,
His instant enemy I prove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
When she is absent, I do more
Delight in all that pleas'd before,
The clearest spring, or shadiest grove :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
When, fond of power, of beauty vain,
Her nets she spread for every swain,
I strove to hate, but vainly strove :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
The victories of Louis the Fourteenth, painted in the galleries of Versailles.
† Chantilly.
↑ St. Cloud.
Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care To every virtue would have form'd your youth, And strew'd with flowers the thorny ways of truth?
O loss beyond repair!
O wretched father! left alone,
To weep their dire misfortune, and thy own!
How shall thy weaken'd mind, oppress'd with woe,
And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave,
Perform the duties that you doubly owe!
Now she, alas! is gone,
From folly and from vice their helpless age to save? |
A
Where were ye, Muses, when relentless Fate
From these fond arms your fair disciple tore;
From these fond arms, that vainly strove
With hapless ineffectual love
To guard her bosom from the mortal blow?
Could not your favoring power, Aonian
maids,
Could not, alas! your power prolong her date,| For whom so oft in these inspiring shades, Or under Camden's moss-clad mountains hoar, You open'd all your sacred store,
Whate'er your ancient sages taught, Your ancient bards sublimely thought, And bade her raptur'd breast with all your spirit
glow?
At least, ye Nine, her spotless name
'Tis yours from Death to save,
And in the temple of immortal Fame
With golden characters her worth engrave.
Come then, ye virgin-sisters, come,
And strew with choicest flowers her hallow'd tomb
But foremost thou, in sable vestment clad,
With accents sweet and sad,
Thou, plaintive Muse, whom o'er his Laura's urn
Unhappy Petrarch call'd to mourn;
O come, and to this fairer Laura pay
more impassion'd tear, a more pathetic lay.
Tell how each beauty of her mind and face
Was brighten'd by some sweet peculiar grace!
How eloquent in every look
Through her expressive eyes her soul distinctly spoke!
Tell how her manners, by the world refin'd,
Left all the taint of modish vice behind,
And made each charm of polish'd courts agree
With candid Truth's simplicity,
And uncorrupted Innocence!
Tell how to more than manly sense
She join'd the softening influence
Of more than female tenderness:
How, in the thoughtless days of wealth and joy, Which oft the care of others' good destroy,
Her kindly-melting heart,
To every want and every woe,
To guilt itself when in distress, The balm of pity would impart, And all relief that bounty could bestow! Ev'n for the kid or lamb that pour'd its life Beneath the bloody knife,
Would thy fond love his grace to her control,
And in these low abodes of sin and pain
Her pure exalted soul
Unjustly for thy partial good detain ?
No-rather strive thy grovelling mind to raise
Up to that unclouded blaze,
That heavenly radiance of eternal light,
In which enthron'd she now with pity sees
How frail, how insecure, how slight,
Is every mortal bliss;
Ev'n love itself, if rising by degrees
Beyond the bounds of this imperfect state,
Whose fleeting joys so soon must end,
It does not to its sovereign good ascend.
Rise then, my soul, with hope elate,
And seek those regions of serene delight,
Whose peaceful path and ever-open gate
No feet but those of harden'd Guilt shall miss
There Death himself thy Lucy shall restore,
There yield up all his power, ne'er to divide you more.
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