Oh! why did I come from the plain
Where I fed on the smiles of my dear?
They tell me my favorite maid,

The pride of that valley, is flown:
Alas! where with her I have strayed,
I could wander with pleasure alone.

When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt at my heart!
Yet I thought-but it might not be so-
'Twas with pain that she saw me depart.
She gazed as I slowly withdrew,-

My path I could hardly discern:

So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

The pilgrim that journeys all day
To visit some far distant shrine,

If he bear but a relic away

Is happy, nor heard to repine.

Thus widely removed from the fair

Where my vows, my devotion, I owe,—

Soft Hope is the relic I bear,

And my solace wherever I go.

SONG

TOLD my nymph, I told her true,

My fields were small, my flocks were few;
While faltering accents spoke my fear

That Flavia might not prove sincere.

Of crops destroyed by vernal cold,
And vagrant sheep that left my fold,-
Of these she heard, yet bore to hear:
And is not Flavia then sincere?

How, changed by Fortune's fickle wind,
The friends I loved became unkind,
She heard, and shed a generous tear:
And is not Flavia then sincere?

How, if she deigned my love to bless,
My Flavia must not hope for dress,—

This too she heard, and smiled to hear:
And Flavia, sure, must be sincere.

Go shear your flocks, ye jovial swains!
Go reap the plenty of your plains;
Despoiled of all which you revere,
I know my Flavia's love sincere.

DISAPPOINTMENT

From A Pastoral'

E SHEPHERDS! give ear to my lay,

YR

And take no more heed of my sheep: They have nothing to do but to stray, I have nothing to do but to weep. Yet do not my folly reprove:

She was fair-and my passion begun; She smiled-and I could not but love;

She is faithless and I am undone.

Perhaps I was void of all thought;

Perhaps it was plain to foresee

That a nymph so complete would be sought
By a swain more engaging than me.
Ah! love every hope can inspire:

It banishes wisdom the while,
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems forever adorned with a smile.

She is faithless, and I am undone:

Ye that witness the woes I endure, Let reason instruct you to shun

What it cannot instruct you to cure. Beware how you loiter in vain

Amid nymphs of a higher degree:

It is not for me to explain

How fair and how fickle they be.

Alas! from the day that we met,

What hope of an end to my woes,

When I cannot endure to forget

The glance that undid my repose?

Yet time may diminish the pain;

The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,

Which I reared for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.
The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose,

The sound of a murmuring stream,
The peace which from solitude flows,

Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme. High transports are shown to the sight, But we're not to find them our own: Fate never bestowed such delight

As I with my Phyllis had known.

O ye woods, spread your branches apace!
To your deepest recesses I fly;

I would hide with the beasts of the chase,
I would vanish from every eye.

Yet my reed shall resound through the grove
With the same sad complaint it begun:
How she smiled, and I could not but love!
Was faithless, and I am undone!

MR

HOPE

From A Pastoral'

Y BANKS they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottoes are shaded with trees,

And my hills are white over with sheep.

I seldom have met with a loss,

Such health do my fountains bestow,— My fountains, all bordered with moss, Where the harebells and violets grow.

Not a pine in my grove is there seen

But with tendrils of woodbine is bound; Not a beech's more beautiful green

But a sweetbrier entwines it around;
Not my fields, in the prime of the year,
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.

One would think she might like to retire
To the bower I have labored to rear;

XXIII-833

Not a shrub that I heard her admire,
But I hasted and planted it there.
Oh, how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilac to render it gay!
Already it calls for my love

To prune the wild branches away.

From the plain, from the woodlands and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves
From thickets of roses that blow!
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join

In a concert so soft and so clear

As she may not be fond to resign.

I have found out a gift for my fair:

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed —
But let me that plunder forbear,

She will say 'twas a barbarous deed:
For he ne'er could be true, she averred,

Who could rob a poor bird of its young;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

I have heard her with sweetness unfold
How that pity was due to a dove;
That it ever attended the bold,

And she called it the sister of Love.
But her words such a pleasure convey,
So much I her accents adore,-
Let her speak, and whatever she say,
Methinks I should love her the more.

Can a bosom so gentle remain

Unmoved when her Corydon sighs?
Will a nymph that is fond of the plain,
These plains and this valley despise?
Dear regions of silence and shade!

Soft scenes of contentment and ease!
Where I could have pleasingly strayed.
If aught in her absence could please.

But where does my Phyllida stray?

And where are her grots and her bowers?

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Are the groves and the valleys as gay,
And the shepherds as gentle as ours?
The groves may perhaps be as fair,

And the face of the valleys as fine;
The swains may in manners compare,
But their love is not equal to mine.

MUCH TASTE AND SMALL ESTATE
From The Progress of Taste

EE yonder hill, so green, so round,

SEE

Its brow with ambient beeches crowned! 'Twould well become thy gentle care

To raise a dome to Venus there:

Pleased would the nymphs thy zeal survey;
And Venus, in their arms, repay.
'Twas such a shade, and such a nook

In such a vale, near such a brook
From such a rocky fragment springing,
That famed Apollo chose, to sing in.
There let an altar wrought with art
Engage thy tuneful patron's heart:
How charming there to muse and warble
Beneath his bust of breathing marble!

With laurel wreath and mimic lyre

That crown a poet's vast desire.

Then, near it, scoop the vaulted cell

Where Music's charming maids may dwell;
Prone to indulge thy tender passion,
And make thee many an assignation.
Deep in the grove's obscure retreat
Be placed Minerva's sacred seat;
There let her awful turrets rise
(For Wisdom flies from vulgar eyes):
There her calm dictates shalt thou hear
Distinctly strike thy listening ear;
And who would shun the pleasing labor
To have Minerva for his neighbor?
But did the Muses haunt his cell?
Or in his dome did Venus dwell?
Did Pallas in his counsels share?
The Delian god reward his prayer?
Or did his zeal engage the fair?