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To Sir William Trumbull
FIRST in these fields I try the sylvan strains, | |
| Nor blush to sport on Windsor’s blissful plains: | |
| Fair Thames, flow gently from thy sacred spring, | |
| While on thy banks Sicilian Muses sing; | |
| Let vernal airs thro’ trembling osiers play, | 5 |
| And Albion’s cliffs resound the rural lay. | |
| You, that too wise for pride, too good for power, | |
| Enjoy the glory to be great no more, | |
| And carrying with you all the world can boast, | |
| To all the world illustriously are lost! | 10 |
| O let my Muse her slender reed inspire, | |
| Till in your native shades you tune the lyre: | |
| So when the nightingale to rest removes, | |
| The thrush may chant to the forsaken groves; | |
| But charm’d to silence, listens while she sings, | 15 |
| And all th’ aërial audience clap their wings. | |
| Soon as the flocks shook off the nightly dews, | |
| Two swains, whom love kept wakeful, and the Muse, | |
| Pour’d o’er the whitening vale their fleecy care, | |
| Fresh as the morn, and as the season fair: | 20 |
| The dawn now blushing on the mountain’s side, | |
| Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus replied: | |
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DAPHNIS. Hear how the birds on ev’ry blooming spray | |
| With joyous music wake the dawning day! | |
| Why sit we mute, when early linnets sing, | 25 |
| When warbling Philomel salutes the spring? | |
| Why sit we sad, when Phosphor shines so clear, | |
| And lavish Nature paints the purple year? | |
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STREPHON. Sing, then, and Damon shall attend the strain, | |
| While you slow oxen turn the furrow’d plain. | 30 |
| Here the bright crocus and blue violet glow; | |
| Here western winds on breathing roses blow. | |
| I ’ll stake yon lamb, that near the fountain plays, | |
| And from the brink his dancing shade surveys. | |
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DAPHNIS. And I this bowl, where wanton ivy twines, | 35 |
| And swelling clusters bend the curling vines: | |
| Four figures rising from the work appear, | |
| The various seasons of the rolling year; | |
| And what is that, which binds the radiant sky, | |
| Where twelve fair signs in beauteous order lie? | 40 |
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DAMON. Then sing by turns, by turns the Muses sing; | |
| Now hawthorns blossom, now the daisies spring; | |
| Now leaves the trees, and flowers adorn the ground: | |
| Begin, the vales shall every note rebound. | |
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STREPHON. Inspire me, Phœbus, in my Delia’s praise, | 45 |
| With Waller’s strains, or Granville’s moving lays! | |
| A milk-white bull shall at your altars stand, | |
| That threats a fight, and spurns the rising sand. | |
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DAPHNIS. O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize, | |
| And make my tongue victorious as her eyes: | 50 |
| No lambs or sheep for victims I ’ll impart, | |
| Thy victim, Love, shall be the shepherd’s heart. | |
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STREPHON. Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain, | |
| Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain; | |
| But feigns a laugh to see me search around, | 55 |
| And by that laugh the willing Fair is found. | |
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DAPHNIS. The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green; | |
| She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen. | |
| While a kind glance at her pursuer flies, | |
| How much at variance are her feet and eyes! | 60 |
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STREPHON. O’er golden sands let rich Pactolus flow, | |
| And trees weep amber on the banks of Po; | |
| Blest Thames’s shores the brightest beauties yield: | |
| Feed here, my lambs, I ’ll seek no distant field. | |
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DAPHNIS. Celestial Venus haunts Idalia’s groves; | 65 |
| Diana Cynthus, Ceres Hybla loves: | |
| If Windsor shades delight the matchless maid, | |
| Cynthus and Hybla yield to Windsor shade. | |
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STREPHON. All nature mourns, the skies relent in showers, | |
| Hush’d are the birds, and closed the drooping flowers; | 70 |
| If Delia smile, the flowers begin to spring, | |
| The skies to brighten, and the birds to sing. | |
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DAPHNIS. All Nature laughs, the groves are fresh and fair, | |
| The sun’s mild lustre warms the vital air; | |
| If Sylvia smiles, new glories gild the shore, | 75 |
| And vanquish’d Nature seems to charm no more. | |
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STREPHON. In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love, | |
| At morn the plains, at noon the shady grove, | |
| But Delia always; absent from her sight, | |
| Nor plains at morn, nor groves at noon delight. | 80 |
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DAPHNIS. Sylvia ’s like autumn ripe, yet mild as May, | |
| More bright than noon, yet fresh as early day: | |
| Ev’n spring displeases, when she shines not here, | |
| But bless’d with her, ’t is spring throughout the year. | |
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STREPHON. Say, Daphnis, say, in what glad soil appears | 85 |
| A wondrous tree, that sacred monarchs bears? | |
| Tell me but this, and I ’ll disclaim the prize, | |
| And give the conquest to thy Sylvia’s eyes. | |
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DAPHNIS. Nay, tell me first, in what more happy fields | |
| The thistle springs, to which the lily yields: | 90 |
| And then a nobler prize I will resign; | |
| For Sylvia, charming Sylvia, shall be thine. | |
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DAMON. Cease to contend; for, Daphnis, I decree | |
| The bowl to Strephon, and the lamb to thee. | |
| Blest swains, whose nymphs in ev’ry grace excel; | 95 |
| Blest nymphs, whose swains those graces sing so well! | |
| Now rise, and haste to yonder woodbine bowers, | |
| A soft retreat from sudden vernal showers; | |
| The turf with rural dainties shall be crown’d, | |
| While opening blooms diffuse their sweets around. | 100 |
| For see! the gath’ring flocks to shelter tend. | |
| And from the Pleiads fruitful showers descend. | |
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