And love the high emboved roof,
With antic pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voic'd quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all heav'n before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may fit and rightly spell
Of every star that heav'n doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To fomething like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will chuse to live.

Pope.

Pope.

:

Pope.

Auch er schrieb sein schdnes mahlerisches Gedicht, Windsor - Forest, in seiner Jugend; und überhaupt ist wohl, wie Dr. Warton bemerkt, Beschreibung der äußern Naturs schonheiten gewdhnlich der erste Versuch des jungen Dichs ters, ehe er Sitten und Leidenschaften studirt hat. Eben dieser geschmackvolle Kunstrichter beurtheilt im zweiten Abschnitte seines trefflichen Versuchs über Pope's Genie den Werth dieses Gedichts umständlich, und hålt es nicht für eis ne der glücklichsten Arbeiten dieses Dichters, dessen glänzendftes Talent die beschreibende Poesie gewiß nicht war. We nige von den hier vorkommenden Bildern sind dem Gegens stande so eigenthumlich, daß sie nicht eben so irgendwo anders stehen könnten. Auch ist es mehr eine Schilderung låndlicher Schdnheiten überhaupt, als derer, die dem Gehdlze bey Windsor eigen sind. Eine der schdnsten Stellen ist die folgende, worin die Erzählung vor Lodona's Verwandlung, in ovidischer Manier, wo nicht glucklich angebracht, doch sehr einnehmend erzählt, und die Schilderung eines tus gendhaften und weisen Mannes, der in gelehrter Eingezos genheit lebt, meisterhaft ausgeführt ist.

WINDSOR - FOREST,
v. 147-258.

1

Now, Cancer glows with Phoebus fiery car!
The youth rush eager to the sylvan war,
Swarm o'er the lands, the forest walks furround,
Rouse the fleet hart, and cheer the op'ning hound.
Th' impatient courser pants in ev'ry vein,
And pawing, seems to beat the distant plain :
Hills, vales, and floods, appear already croft,
And ere he starts, a thousand steps are loft.
See the bold youth strain up the threat'ning steep
Ruth through the thickets, down the valleys sweep,

Hang

Pope. 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 QUEEN;
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 Windfor shade;
Hete was she seen o'er airy wastes to rove
Seek the clear spring, or haunt the pathless grove;
Here arm'd with filver bows, in early dawn
Her buskin'd virgins trac'd the wy lawn.

Above the rest a rural nymph was fam'd
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 theigoddess from her nymph be known,
But by the crefcent 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 chace, the maid
Beyond the forest's verdant limits stray'd
Pan faw and lov'd, and burning with defire
Pursu'd 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 halt so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,
When thro' the clouds he-drives the trembling do-

ves;

As from the god she flew with furious pace,
Or as the god, more furious, urg'd the chace.
Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears.
Now close behind, his founding steps she hears;
And now his shadow reach'd her as she run,

His shadow lengthen'd by the setting fun;

And Pope.

And now his shorter breath, with fultry 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,
Faint, breathless, thus she pray'd, nor pray'd in vain :
„Ah, Cyntia! ah - though banish'd from thy train
Let me, o let me, to the shades repair
„My native shades-there weep, and murmur there!
She said, and melting as in tears she lay
In a soft, filver Stream dissolv'd away,
The filver Stream her virgin coldness keeps,
For ever murmurs, and for ever weeps;
Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore.
And bathes the foreft where she rang'd before.
In her chaste current oft the goddess laves,
And with celestial tears augments the waves.
Oft in her glass the musing shepherd spies
The headlong mountains and the downward skies,
The wat'ry landscape of the pendent woods
And absent trees that tremble in the floods;
In the clear azure gleam the flocks are feen
✓ And floating forest paint the waves with green.
Through the fair scene roll flow the ling'ring 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.
Not Neptune's self from all her streams ims 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 vifits 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 blanks below.
Where Jove, subdu'd by mortal passion still
Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.

Happy

7

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

1

He gathers health from herbs the forest yields,
And of their fragrant physic spoils the fields:
With chemic art exalts the min'ral pow'rs
And draws the aromatic fouls 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 filent wood,
Attends the duties of the wife and good,
T'observe a mean, be to himself a friend,
To follow nature, and regard his end;
Or looks on heaven with more than mortal eyes,
Bids his free soul exspatiate in the skies,
Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,
Survey the region, and confefs her home.
Such was the life great Scipio once admir'd
Thus Atticus, and TRUMBULL thus retir'd.

4

Dyer.