That stretch'd her speechless, o'er her lovely head Had innocently roll'd.
Meanwhile, impatient Junio leap'd ashore,
Regardless of the demons of the storm.
Ah, youth! what woes, too great for man to bear,
Are ready to burst on thee? Urge not so
Thy flying courser. Soon Theana's porch
Receiv'd him: at his sight, the ancient slaves
Affrighted shriek, and to the chamber point :-
Confounded, yet unknowing what they meant,
He entered hasty-
Ah! what a sight for one who loved so well
All pale and cold, in every feature death,
Theana lay; and yet a glimpse of joy [voice,
Played on her face, while with faint, faltering
She thus address'd the youth, whom yet she knew:
'Welcome, my Junio, to thy native shore!
Thy sight repays the summons of my fate:
Live, and live happy; sometimes think of me:
By night, by day, you still engag'd my care;
And next to God, you now my thoughts employ:
Accept of thisMy little all I give;
Would it were larger'- -Nature could no more;
She look'd, embrac'd him, with a groan expir'd.
But say, what strains, what language can express The thousand pangs which tore the lover's breast? Upon her breathless corse himself he threw, And to her clay-cold lips, with trembling haste, Ten thousand kisses gave. He strove to speak; Nor words he found! he clasp'd her in his arms; He sigh'd, he swoon'd, look'd up, and died away. One grave contains this hapless, faithful pair; And still the Cane-isles tell their matchless love! Grainger
DESCRIPTION OF THE THAMES, AND OF STAG
My eye descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays:
Thames! the most lov'd of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity;
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold:
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay ;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil
The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil;
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
But free and common as the sea or wind;
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying tow'rs
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants.
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O could I flow like thee; and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme;
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full;
Heaven her Eridamus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser current, 's lost:
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars *, and bathe the gods.
Here Nature, whether more intent to please
Us for herself, with strange varieties,
(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise Maker's than beholder's sight;
Though these delights from several causes move,
For so our children, thus our friends, we love)
Wisely she knew the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.
Such was the discord which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty, through the universe:
While dryness moisture, coldness heat resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists:
While the steep horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood.
Such huge extremes when Nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.
The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamour'd youth† gaz'd here,
So fatally deceiv'd he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes: his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat;
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is plac'd,
Between the mountain and the stream embrac'd,
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives,
And in the mixture of all these appears.
Variety, which all the rest endears.
This scene had some bold Greek or British bard
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard
Of Fairies, Satyrs, and the Nymphs, their dames,
Their feasts, their revels, and their amorous flames?
'Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.
There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts
To graze the ranker mead; that noble herd
On whose sublime and shady fronts is rear'd
Nature's great masterpiece, to show how soon
Great things are made, but sooner are undone.
Here have I seen the king, when great affairs
Gave leave to slacken and unbend his cares,
Attended to the chase by all the flow'r
Of youth, whose hopes a nobler prey devour:
Pleasure with praise and danger they would buy,
And wish a foe that would not only fly.
The stag now conscious of his fatal growth,
At once indulgent to his fear and sloth,
To some dark covert his retreat had made,
Where nor man's eye, nor Heaven's, should invade
His soft repose; when th' unexpected sound
Of dogs and men his wakeful ear does wound.
Rous'd with the noise, he scarce believes his ear,
Willing to think th' illusions of his fear
Had given this false alarm, but straight his view
Confirms, that more than all he fears is true.
Betray'd in all his strengths, the wood beset,
All instruments, all arts of ruin met,
He calls to mind his strength, and then his speed,
His winged heels, and then his armed head;
With these to avoid, with that his fate to meet,
But fear prevails, and bids him trust his feet.
So fast he flies, that his reviewing eye
Has lost the chasers, and his ear the cry;
Exulting, till he finds their nobler sense
Their disproportion'd speed doth recompense;
Then curses his conspiring feet, whose scent
Betrays that safety which their swiftness lent:
Then tries his friends; among the baser herd,
Where he so lately was obey'd and fear'd,
His safety seeks: the herd, unkindly wise,
Or chases him from thence or from him flies.
Like a declining statesman, left forlorn
To his friends' pity, and pursuers' scorn,
With shame remembers while himself was one
Of the same herd, himself the same had done.
Thence to the coverts and the conscious groves,
The scenes of his past triumphs and his loves,
Sadly surveying where he rang'd alone,
Prince of the soil, and all the herd his own;
And like a bold knight-errant did proclaim
Combat to all, and bore away the dame,
And taught the woods to echo to the stream
His dreadful challenge and his clashing beam;
Yet faintly now declines the fatal strife,
So much his love was dearer than his life.
Now every leaf, and every moving breath
Presents a foe, and every foe a death.
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