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, resvund 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! Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain ! Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! Resound, ye hills, rebound 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 DAPHNE. LYCIDAS. TUYRSIS. LYCIDAS. THYRSIS. 'Tis done, and Nature's various charms decay: For her the flocks refuse their verdant food : No grateful dews descend from evening skies, No more the mounting larks, while Daphne sings, 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 sucha ideas as best agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry, and disposed them in that man ner which served most to beautify bis 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. The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades, The dreams of Pindus and th’ Aonian maids, Delight no more-0 Thou my voice inspire 5 Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire! Rapt into future times, the bard begún: IMITATIONS. Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna, Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem. Now the virgiu 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.' |