Yet Clio frets and burns with honest pain,

To rouse and animate the martial strain, [plain.
While British banners flame o'er many a purpled

The trumpet sleeps, but soon for thee shall wake,
Illustrious chief! to sound thy mighty name
(Snatch'd from the malice of Lethean lake),
Triumphant swelling from the mouth of Fame.
Meanwhile, disdain not (so the virgins pray)
This rosy crown, with myrtle wove and bay
(Too humble crown I ween), the offering of May.
And while the virgins hail thee with their voice,
Heaping thy crowded way with greens and flowers,
And in the fondness of their heart rejoice
To soothe, with dance and song, thy gentler hours;
Indulge the season, and with sweet repair
Embay thy limbs, the vernal beauties share:
Then blaze in arms again, renew'd for future war.

Britannia's happy isle derives from May
The choicest blessings liberty bestows:
When royal Charles (for ever hail the day!)
In mercy triumph'd o'er ignoble foes.

Restored with him, the arts the drooping head
Gaily again uprear'd; the Muses' shade [ray'd.
With fresher honours bloomed, in greener trim ar-

And thou, the goodliest blossom of our isles!
Great Frederick's and his Augusta's joy,
Thy native month approved with infant smiles,
Sweet as the smiling May, imperial boy!
Britannia hopes thee for her future lord,

Loved as thy parents, only not adored! [tored.
Whene'er a George is born, Charles is again res-

O, may his father's pant for finer fame,
And boundless bounty head to humankind;
His grandsires' glory, and his uncle's name,
Renown'd in war! inflame his ardent mind:
So arts shall flourish 'neath his equal sway,
So arms the hostile nations wide affray;
The laurel Victory, Apollo wear the bay.

Through kind infusion of celestial power,
The dullard earth May quickeneth with delight:
Full suddenly the seeds of joy recure

*

Elastic spring, and force within empight +.
If senseless elements invigorate prove

By genial May, and heavy matter move, [love?
Shall shepherdesses cease, shall shepherds fail to

Ye shepherdesses, in a goodly round,

Purpled with health, as in the greenwood shade,
Incontinent ye thump the echoing ground
And deftly lead the dance along the glade;
(0, may no showers your merry-makes affray!)
Hail at the opening, at the closing day,
All hail, ye bonnibels §, to your own season, May.

Nor ye absent yourselves, ye shepherd swains,
But lend to dance and song the liberal May,
And while in jocund ranks you beat the plains,
Your flocks shall nibble and your lambkins play,
Frisking in glee. To May your garlands bring,
And ever and anon her praises sing: [ring.
The woods shall echo May, with May the valleys

* Recover.
Pretty women.

VOL. III.

† Placed, fixed.

+ Finely.

K

Your Maypole deck with flowery coronal;
Sprinkle the flowery coronal with wine;
And in the nimble-footed galliard, all,
Shepherds and shepherdesses, lively, join.
Hither from village sweet and hamlet fair,
From bordering cot and distant glen repair,
Let youth indulge its sport, to eld* bequeath its

care.

Ye wanton Dryads and light-tripping Fawns,
Ye jolly Satyrs, full of lustyhead †,

And ye that haunt the hills, the brooks, the lawns;
O, come with rural chaplets gay dispread:
With heel so nimble wear the springing grass,
To shrilling bagpipe, or to tinkling brass;
Or foot it to the reed: Pan pipes himself apace.

In this soft season, when creation smiled,
A quivering splendour on the ocean hung,
And from the fruitful froth, his fairest child,
The queen of bliss and beauty, Venus sprung.
The dolphins gambol o'er the watery way,
Carol the Naiads, while the Tritons play,
And all the seagreen Sisters bless the holiday.

In honour of her natal month, the queen
Of bliss and beauty consecrates her hours,
Fresh as her cheek, and as her brow serene,
To buxom ladies, and their paramours.
Love tips with golden alchymy his dart;
With rapturous anguish, with a honey'd smart,
Eye languishes on eye, and heart dissolves on heart.

A softly swelling hill, with myrtles crown'd
(Myrtles to Venus algates* sacred been),
Hight Acidale, the fairest spot on ground,
For ever fragrant and for ever green,
O'erlooks the windings of a shady vale,
By beauty form'd for amorous regale.
Was ever hill so sweet as sweetest Acidale?

All down the sides, the sides profuse of flowers,
A hundred rills, in shining mazes, flow
Through mossy grottos, amaranthine bowers,
And form a laughing flood in vale below :.
Where oft their limbs the Loves and Graces bay +
(When Summer sheds insufferable day), [play.
And sport and dive and flounce in wantonness of

No noise o'ercomes the silence of the shades,
Save short-breathed vows, the dear excess of joy;
Or harmless giggle of the youths and maids,
Who yield obeisance to the Cyprian boy :
Or lute, soft-sighing in the passing gale;
Or fountain, gurgling down the sacred vale;
Or hymn to beauty's queen, or lover's tender tale.

Here Venus revels, here maintains her court
In light festivity and gladsome game:
The young and gay, in frolic troops resort,
Withouten censure and withouten blame.
In pleasure steep'd, and dancing in delight,
Night steals upon the day, the day on night:
Each knight his lady loves; each lady loves her
knight.

Where lives the man (if such a man there be),
In idle wilderness or desert drear,

To beauty's sacred power an enemy?

Let foul fiends harrow* him; I'll drop no tear.
I deem that carl+, by beauty's power unmoved,
Hated of heaven, of none but hell approved:
O may he never love, O never be beloved!

Hard is his heart, unmelted by thee, May!
Unconscious of love's nectar-tickling sting,
And, unrelenting, cold to Beauty's ray;
Beauty the mother and the child of Spring!
Beauty and Wit declare the sexes even;
Beauty to woman, wit to man is given;
Neither the slime of earth, but each the fire of
heaven.

Alliance sweet! let beauty wit approve,
As flowers to sunshine ope the ready breast:
Wit Beauty loves, and nothing else can love :
The best alone is grateful to the best.
Perfection has no other parallel !

Can light with darkness, doves with ravens dwell? As soon, perdiet, shall heaven communion hold with hell.

I sing to you, who love alone for love:

For gold the beauteous fools (O fools besure!) Can win; though brighter Wit shall never move: But Folly is to Wit the certain cure.

Cursed be the men (or be they young or old), Cursed be the women, who themselves have sold To the detested bed for lucre base of gold.