University of Virginia Library

PASTORAL POEMS.

THE FIRST PASTORAL. If we, O Dorset, quit the city-throng

LOBBIN.

THE SECOND PASTORAL. Is it not Colinet I lonesome see

THENOT, COLINET.
THENOT.

COLINET.
Though blithe their notes, not so my wayward fate;
Nor lark would sing, nor linnet, in my state.
Each creature, Thenot, to his task is born,
As they to mirth and musick, I to mourn.
Waking, at midnight, I my woes renew,
My tears oft' mingling with the falling dew.

THENOT.
Small cause, I ween, has lusty youth to plain;
Or who may, then, the weight of eld sustain,
When every slackening nerve begins to fail,
And the load presseth as our days prevail?
Yet, though with years my body downward tend,
As trees beneath their fruit, in autumn, bend
Spite of my snowy head and icy veins,
My mind a chearful temper still retains:
And why should man, mishap what will, repine,
Sour every sweet, and mix with tears his wine?
But tell me then: it may relieve thy woe,
To let a friend thine inward ailment know.

COLINET.
Idly 'twill waste thee, Thenot, the whole day,
Should'st thou give ear to all my grief can say.
Thine ewes will wander; and the heedless lambs,
In loud complaints, require their absent dams.

THENOT.
See Lightfoot; he shall tend them close: and I,
'Tween whiles, across the plain will glance mine eye.

COLINET.
Where to begin I know not, where to end.
Does there one smiling hour my youth attend?
Though few my days, as well my follies show,
Yet are those days all clouded o'er with woe:
No happy gleam of sunshine doth appear,
My lowering sky, and wintery months, to chear.
My piteous plight in yonder naked tree,
Which bears the thunder-scar, too plain I see:
Quite destitute it stands of shelter kind,
The mark of storms, and sport of every wind:
The riven trunk feels not th'approach of spring;
Nor birds among the leafless branches sing:
No more, beneath thy shade, shall shepherds throng
With jocund tale, or pipe, or pleasing song.
Ill-fated tree! and more ill-fated I!
From thee, from me, alike the shepherds fly.

THENOT.
Sure thou in hapless hour of time wast born,
When blighting mildews spoil the rising corn,
Or blasting winds o'er-blossom'd hedge-rows pass,
To kill the promis'd fruits, and scorch the grass,
Or when the moon, by wizard charm'd, foreshows,
Blood-stain'd in foul eclipse, impending woes.
Untimely born, ill-luck betides thee still.

COLINET.
And can there, Thenot, be a greater Ill?

THENOT.
Nor fox, nor wolf, nor rot among our sheep:
From these good shepherd's care his flock may keep:
Against ill-luck, alas! all forecast fails;
Nor toil by day, nor watch by night, avails.

COLINET.
Ah me, the while! ah me, the luckless day!
Ah luckless lad! befits me more to say.
Unhappy hour! when fresh in youthful bud,
I left, Sabrina fair, thy silvery flood.
Ah, silly I! more silly than my sheep,
Which, on thy flowery banks, I wont to keep.
Sweet are thy banks! Oh, when shall I, once more,
With ravish'd eyes review thine amell'd shore?
When, in the crystal of thy water, scan
Each feature faded, and my colour wan?
When shall I see my hut, the small abode
Myself did raise, and cover o'er with sod?
Small though it be, a mean and humble cell,
Yet is there room for peace, and me, to dwell.

THENOT.
And what enticement charm'd thee, far away,
From thy lov'd home, and led thy heart astray?

COLINET.
A lewd desire strange lands, and swains, to know:
Ah God! that ever I should covet woe.
With wandering feet unblest, and fond of fame,
I sought I know not what besides a name.

THENOT.
Or, sooth to say, didst thou not hither rome
In search of gains more plenty than at home?
A rolling stone is, ever, bare of moss;
And, to their cost, green years old proverbs cross.

COLINET.
Small need there was, in random search of gain,
To drive my pining flock athwart the plain,
To distant Cam. Fine gain at length, I trow,
To hoard up to myself such deal of woe!
My sheep quite spent, through travel and ill fare,
And, like their keeper, ragged grown and bare,
The damp, cold greensward, for my nightly bed,
And some slaunt willow's trunk to rest my head.
Hard is to bear of pinching cold the pain;
And hard is want to the unpracticed swain:
But neither want, nor pinching cold, is hard,
To blasting storms of calumny compar'd:
Unkind as hail it falls; the pelting shower
Destroys the tender herb, and budding flower.

THENOT.
Slander we shepherds count the vilest wrong:
And what wounds sorer than an evil tongue?

COLINET.
Untoward lads, the wanton imps of spite,
Make mock of all the ditties I endite.
In vain, O Colinet, thy pipe, so shrill,
Charms every vale, and gladdens every hill:
In vain thou seek'st the coverings of the grove,
In the cool shade to sing the pains of love:
Sing what thou wilt, ill-nature will prevail;
And every elf hath skill enough to rail:
But yet, though poor and artless be my vein,
Menalcas seems to like my simple strain:
And, while that He delighteth in my song,
Which to the good Menalcas doth belong,
Nor night, nor day, shall my rude musick cease;
I ask no more, so I Menalcas please.

THENOT.
Menalcas, lord of these fair, fertile, plains,
Preserves the sheep, and o'er the shepherds reigns:
For him our yearly wakes, and feasts, we hold,
And choose the fairest firstling from the fold:
He, good to all, who Good deserve, shall give
Thy flock to feed, and thee at ease to live,
Shall curb the malice of unbridled tongues,
And bounteously reward thy rural songs.

COLINET.
First, then, shall lightsome birds forget to fly,
The briny ocean turn to pastures dry,
And every rapid river cease to flow,
'E're I unmindful of Menalcas grow.

THENOT.
This night thy care with me forget, and fold
Thy flock with mine, to ward th'injurious cold.
New milk, and clouted cream, mild cheese and curd,
With some remaining fruit of last year's hoard,
Shall be our evening fare, and, for the night,
Sweet herbs and moss, which gentle sleep invite:
And now behold the sun's departing ray,
O'er yonder hill, the sign of ebbing day:
With songs the jovial hinds return from plow;
And unyok'd heifers, loitering homeward, low.

THE THIRD PASTORAL. When Virgil thought no shame

ALBINO.

ANGELOT.
Thus, yearly circling, by-past times return;
And yearly, thus, Albino's death we mourn.
Sent into life, alas! how short thy stay:
How sweet the rose! how speedy to decay!
Can we forget, Albino dear, thy knell,
Sad-sounding wide from every village-bell?
Can we forget how sorely Albion moan'd,
That hills, and dales, and rocks, in echo groan'd,
Presaging future woe, when, for our crimes,
We lost Albino, pledge of peaceful times,
Fair boast of this fair Island, darling joy
Of Nobles high, and every shepherd-boy?
No joyous pipe was hear'd, no flocks were seen,
Nor shepherd found upon the grassy green,
No cattle graz'd the field, nor drank the flood,
No birds were hear'd to warble through the wood.
In yonder gloomy grove out-stretch'd he lay,
His lovely limbs upon the dampy clay;
On his cold cheek the rosy hue decay'd,
And, o'er his lips, the deadly blue display'd:
Bleating around him ly his plaintive sheep;
And mourning shepherds come, in crowds, to weep.
Young Buckhurst comes: and, is there no redress?
As if the grave regarded our distress!
The tender virgins come, to tears yet new,
And give, aloud, the lamentations due.
The pious mother comes, with grief opprest:
Ye trees, and conscious fountains, can attest
With what sad accents, and what piercing cries,
She fill'd the grove, and importun'd the skies,
And every star upbraided with his death,
When, in her widowed arms, devoid of breath,
She clasp'd her son: nor did the Nymph, for this,
Place in her dearling's welfare all her bliss,
Him teaching, young, the harmless crook to wield,
And rule the peaceful empire of the field.
As milk-white swans on streams of silver show,
And silvery streams to grace the meadows flow,
As corn the vales, and trees the hills adorn,
So thou, to thine, an ornament wast born.
Since thou, delicious youth, didst quit the plains,
Th'ungrateful ground we till with fruitless pains,
In labour'd furrows sow the choice of wheat,
And, over empty sheaves, in harvest sweat,
A thin increase our fleecy cattle yield;
And thorns, and thistles, overspread the field.
How all our hope is fled, like morning-dew!
And scarce did we thy dawn of manhood view.
Who, now, shall teach the pointed spear to throw,
To whirl the sling, and bend the stubborn bow,
To toss the quoit with steady aim, and far,
With sinewy force, to pitch the massy bar?
Nor dost thou live to bless thy mother's days,
To share her triumphs, and to feel her praise,
In foreign realms to purchase early fame,
And add new glories to the British name:
O, peaceful may thy gentle spirit rest!
The flowery turf ly light upon thy breast;
Nor shrieking owl, nor bat, thy tomb fly round,
Nor midnight goblins revel o'er the ground.

PALIN.
No more, mistaken Angelot, complain:
Albino lives; and all our tears are vain:
Albino lives, and will, for ever live
With Myriads mixt, who never know to grieve,
Who welcome every stranger-guest, nor fear
Ever to mourn his absence with a tear,
Where cold, nor heat, nor irksome toil annoy,
Nor age, nor sickness, comes to damp their joy:
And now the royal Nymph, who bore him, deigns
The land to rule, and shield the simple swains,
While, from above, propitious he looks down:
For this, the welkin does no longer frown,
Each planet shines, indulgent, from his sphere,
And we renew our pastimes with the year.
Hills, dales, and woods, with shrilling pipes resound;
The boys and virgins dance, with chaplets crown'd,
And hail Albino blest: the valleys ring
Albino blest! O now, if ever, bring
The laurel green, the smelling eglantine,
And tender branches from the mantling vine,
The dewy cowslip, which in meadow grows,
The fountain-violet, and the garden-rose,
Marsh-lillies sweet, and tufts of daffadil,
With what ye cull from wood, or verdant hill,
Whether in open sun, or shade, they blow,
More early some, and some unfolding slow,
Bring, in heap'd canisters, of every kind,
As if the summer had with spring combin'd,
And nature, forward to assist your care,
Did no profusion for Albino spare.
Your hamlets strew, and every publick way;
And consecrate to mirth Albino's day:
Myself will lavish all my little store,
And deal about the goblet flowing o'er:
Old Moulin there shall harp, young Myco sing,
And Cuddy dance the round amid the ring,
And Hobbinol his antic gambols play:
To thee these honours, yearly, will we pay;
Nor fail to mention thee in all our chear,
And teach our children the remembrance dear,
When we or shearing-feast, or harvest, keep,
To speed the plow, and bless our thriving sheep.
While willow kids, and herbage lambs, pursue,
While bees love thyme, and locusts sip the dew,
While birds delight in woods their notes to strain,
Thy name and sweet memorial shall remain.

THE FOURTH PASTORAL. This place may seem for shepherd's leisure made

MYCO, ARGOL.
MYCO.
This place may seem for shepherd's leisure made,
So close these elms inweave their lofty shade;
The twining woodbine, how it climbs! to breathe
Refreshing sweets around on all beneath;
The ground with grass of chearful green bespread,
Through which the springing flower up-rears the head:
Lo, here the kingcup of a golden hue,
Medly'd with daisies white and endive blue,
And honeysuckles of a purply dy,
Confusion gay! bright-waving to the eye.
Hark, how they warble in that brambly bush,
The gaudy goldfinch and the speckly thrush,
The linnet green, with others famed for skill,
And blackbird fluting through his yellow bill:
In sprightly concert how they all combine,
Us prompting in the various song to join:
Up, Argol, then, and to thy lip apply
Thy mellow pipe, or voice more sounding try:
And since our ewes have graz'd, what harm if they
Ly round and listen while the lambkins play?

ARGOL.
Well, Myco, can thy dainty wit express
Fair nature's bounties in the fairest dress:
'Tis rapture all! the place, the birds, the sky;
And rapture works the finger's fancy high.
Sweet breathe the fields, and now a gentle breez
Moves every leaf, and trembles through the trees:
Ill such incitements suit my rugged lay,
Befitting more the Musick thou can'st play.

MYCO.
No skill of musick kon I, simple swain,
No fine device thine ear to entertain:
Albeit some deal I pipe, rude though it be,
Sufficient to divert my sheep and me;
Yet Colinet (and Colinet hath skill)
Oft' guides my fingers on the tuneful quill,
And fain would teach me on what sounds to dwell,
And where to sink a note, and where to swell.

ARGOL.
Ah, Myco! half my flock would I bestow,
Should Colinet to me his cunning show:
So trim his sonnets are, I pr'ythee, swain,
Now give us, once, a sample of his strain:
For wonders of that lad the shepherds say,
How sweet his pipe, how ravishing his lay!
The sweetness of his pipe and lay rehearse;
And ask what Boon thou willest for thy verse.

MYCO.

ARGOL.

MYCO.
Bid then our dogs to gather in the sheep.
Good shepherds, with their flock, betimes should sleep.
Who late lies down, thou know'st, as late will rise,
And, sluggard-like, to noon-day snoring lies,
While in the fold his injur'd ewes complain,
And after dewy pastures bleat in vain.

THE FIFTH PASTORAL. In rural strains we first our musick try

CUDDY.

THE SIXTH PASTORAL. How still the sea behold! how calm the sky!

GERON, HOBBINOL, LANQUET.
GERON.
How still the sea behold! how calm the sky!
And how, in sportive chase, the swallows fly!
My goats, secure from harm, small tendance need,
While high, on yonder hanging rock, they feed:
And, here below, the banky shore along,
Your heifers graze. Now, then, to strive in song
Prepare. As eldest, Hobbinol begin;
And Lanquet's rival-verse, by turns, come in.

HOBBINOL.
Let others stake what chosen pledge they will,
Or kid, or lamb, or mazer wrought with skill:
For praise we sing, nor wager ought beside;
And, whose the praise, let Geron's lips decide.

LANQUET.
To Geron I my voice, and skill, commend,
A candid umpire, and to both a friend.

GERON.
Begin then, boys; and vary well your song:
Begin; nor fear, from Geron's sentence, wrong.
A boxen hautboy, loud, and sweet of sound,
All varnish'd, and with brazen ringlets bound,
I to the victor give: no mean reward,
If to the ruder village-pipes compar'd.

HOBBINOL.
The snows are melted; and the kindly rain
Descends on every herb, and every grain:
Soft balmy breezes breathe along the sky;
The bloomy season of the year is nigh.

LANQUET.
The cuckoo calls aloud his wandering love;
The turtle's moan is hear'd in every grove;
The pastures change; the warbling linnets sing:
Prepare to welcome in the gaudy spring.

HOBBINOL.
When locusts, in the ferny bushes, cry,
When ravens pant, and snakes in caverns ly,
Graze then in woods, and quit the shadeless plain,
Else shall ye press the spungy teat in vain.

LANQUET.
When greens to yellow vary, and ye see
The ground bestrew'd with fruits off every tree,
And stormy winds are hear'd, think winter near,
Nor trust too far to the declining year.

HOBBINOL.
Woe then, alack! befall the spendthrift swain,
When frost, and snow, and hail, and sleet, and rain,
By turns chastise him, while, through little care,
His sheep, unshelter'd, pine in nipping air.

LANQUET.
The lad of forecast then untroubled sees
The white-bleak plains, and silvery frosted trees:
He fends his flock, and, clad in homely frize,
In his warm cott the wintery blast defies.

HOBBINOL.
Full fain, O bless'd Eliza! would I praise
Thy maiden rule, and Albion's golden days:
Then gentle Sidney liv'd, the shepherd's friend:
Eternal blessings on his shade attend!

LANQUET.
Thrice happy shepherds now! for Dorset loves
The country-muse, and our resounding groves,
While Anna reigns: O, ever, may she reign!
And bring, on earth, the golden age again.

HOBBINOL.
I love, in secret all, a beauteous maid,
And have my love, in secret all, repaid;
This coming night she plights her troth to me:
Divine her name, and thou the victor be.

LANQUET.
Mild as the lamb, unharmful as the dove,
True as the turtle, is the maid I love:
How we in secret love, I shall not say:
Divine her name, and I give up the day.

HOBBINOL.
Soft on a cowslip-bank my love and I
Together lay; a brook ran murmuring by:
A thousand tender things to me she said;
And I a thousand tender things repaid.

LANQUET.
In summer-shade, behind the cocking hay,
What kind endearing words did she not say!
Her lap, with apron deck'd, she fondly spread,
And strok'd my cheek, and lull'd my leaning head.

HOBBINOL.
Breathe soft ye winds; ye waters gently flow;
Shield her ye trees; ye flowers around her grow:
Ye swains, I beg ye, pass in silence by;
My love, in yonder vale, asleep does ly.

LANQUET.
Once Delia slept on easy moss reclin'd,
Her lovely limbs half bare, and rude the wind:
I smooth'd her coats, and stole a silent kiss:
Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss.

HOBBINOL.
As Marian bath'd, by chance I passed by;
She blush'd, and at me glanc'd a sidelong eye:
Then, cowering in the treacherous stream, she try'd
Her tempting form, yet still in vain, to hide.

LANQUET.
As I, to cool me, bath'd one sultry day,
Fond Lydia, lurking, in the sedges lay:
The wanton laugh'd, and seem'd in haste to fly,
Yet oft' she stopp'd, and oft' she turn'd her eye.

HOBBINOL.
When first I saw, would I had never seen,
Young Lyset lead the dance on yonder green,
Intent upon her beauties, as she mov'd,
Poor heedless wretch! at unawares I lov'd.

LANQUET.
When Lucy decks with flowers her swelling breast,
And on her elbow leans, dissembling rest,
Unable to refrain my madding mind,
Nor herds, nor pasture, worth my care I find.

HOBBINOL.
Come, Rosalind, O, come! for, wanting thee,
Our peopled vale a desert is to me.
Come, Rosalind, O, come! My brinded kine,
My snowy sheep, my farm, and all, are thine.

LANQUET.
Come, Rosalind, O, come! Here shady bowers,
Here are cool fountains, and here springing flowers:
Come, Rosalind! Here ever let us stay,
And sweetly waste the live-long time away.

HOBBINOL.
In vain the seasons of the moon I know,
The force of healing herbs, and where they grow:
No herb there is, no season, to remove
From my fond heart the racking pains of love.

LANQUET.
What profits me, that I in charms have skill,
And ghosts, and goblins, order as I will,
Yet have, with all my charms, no power to lay
The sprite that breaks my quiet night and day?

HOBBINOL.
O that, like Colin, I had skill in rhimes,
To purchase credit with succeeding times!
Sweet Colin Clout! who never, yet, had peer;
Who sung through all the seasons of the year.

LANQUET.
Let me, like Merlin, sing: his Voice had power
To free the 'clipsing moon at midnight hour:
And, as he sung, the fairies with their queen,
In mantles blue, came tripping o'er the green.

HOBBINOL.
Last eve of May did I not hear them sing,
And see their dance? And I can shew the ring,
Where, hand in hand, they shift their feet so light:
The grass springs greener from their tread by night.

LANQUET.
But hast thou seen their king, in rich array,
Fam'd Oberon, with damask'd robe so gay,
And gemmy crown, by moonshine sparkling far,
And azure scepter, pointed with a star?

GERON.
Here end your pleasing strife. Both victors are;
And both with Colin may, in rhyme, compare.
A boxen hautboy, loud, and sweet of sound,
All varnish'd, and with brazen ringlets bound,
To each I give. A mizling mist descends
Adown that steepy rock: and this way tends
Yon distant rain. Shoreward the vessels strive;
And, see, the boys their flocks to shelter drive.

THE STRAY NYMPH

THE HAPPY SWAIN