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To Mr. Wycherley
BENEATH the shade a spreading beech displays, | |
| Hylas and Ægon sung their rural lays; | |
| This mourn’d a faithless, that an absent love, | |
| And Delia’s name and Doris’ fill’d the grove. | |
| Ye Mantuan Nymphs, your sacred succour bring, | 5 |
| Hylas and Ægon’s rural lays I sing. | |
| Thou, whom the Nine with Plautus’ wit inspire, | |
| The art of Terence, and Menander’s fire; | |
| Whose sense instructs us, and whose humour charms, | |
| Whose judgment sways us, and whose spirit warms! | 10 |
| O, skill’d in Nature! see the hearts of swains, | |
| Their artless passions, and their tender pains. | |
| Now setting Phœbus shone serenely bright, | |
| And fleecy clouds were streak’d with purple light; | |
| When tuneful Hylas, with melodious moan, | 15 |
| Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan. | |
| Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! | |
| To Delia’s ear the tender notes convey. | |
| As some sad turtle his lost love deplores, | |
| And with deep murmurs fills the sounding shores; | 20 |
| Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn, | |
| Alike unheard, unpitied, and forlorn. | |
| Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! | |
| For her, the feather’d quires neglect their song; | |
| For her, the limes their pleasing shades deny; | 25 |
| For her, the lilies hang their heads and die. | |
| Ye flowers that droop, forsaken by the spring, | |
| Ye birds that, left by Summer, cease to sing, | |
| Ye trees, that fade when Autumn-heats remove, | |
| Say, is not absence death to those who love? | 30 |
| Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! | |
| Curs’d be the fields that cause my Delia’s stay! | |
| Fade ev’ry blossom, wither ev’ry tree, | |
| Die ev’ry flower, and perish all but she! | |
| What have I said? Where’er my Delia flies, | 35 |
| Let Spring attend, and sudden flowers arise! | |
| Let op’ning roses knotted oaks adorn, | |
| And liquid amber drop from ev’ry thorn! | |
| Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! | |
| The birds shall cease to tune their ev’ning song, | 40 |
| The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move, | |
| And streams to murmur, ere I cease to love. | |
| Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain, | |
| Not balmy sleep to lab’rers faint with pain, | |
| Not showers to larks, nor sunshine to the bee, | 45 |
| Are half so charming as thy sight to me. | |
| Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! | |
| Come, Delia, come; ah, why this long delay? | |
| Thro’ rocks and caves the name of Delia sounds, | |
| Delia, each cave and echoing rock rebounds. | 50 |
| Ye Powers, what pleasing frenzy soothes my mind! | |
| Do lovers dream, or is my Delia kind? | |
| She comes, my Delia comes!—Now cease, my lay, | |
| And cease, ye gales, to bear my sighs away! | |
| Next Ægon sung, while Windsor groves admired: | 55 |
| Rehearse, ye Muses, what yourselves inspired. | |
| Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain! | |
| Of perjur’d Doris dying I complain: | |
| Here where the mountains, less’ning as they rise, | |
| Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies: | 60 |
| While lab’ring oxen, spent with toil and heat, | |
| In their loose traces from the field retreat: | |
| While curling smokes from village-tops are seen, | |
| And the fleet shades glide o’er the dusky green. | |
| Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! | 65 |
| Beneath yon poplar oft we pass’d the day: | |
| Oft on the rind I carv’d her am’rous vows, | |
| While she with garlands hung the bending boughs: | |
| The garlands fade, the vows are worn away; | |
| So dies her love, and so my hopes decay. | 70 |
| Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain! | |
| Now bright Arcturus glads the teeming grain, | |
| Now golden fruits on loaded branches shine, | |
| And grateful clusters swell with floods of wine; | |
| Now blushing berries paint the yellow grove: | 75 |
| Just Gods! shall all things yield returns but love? | |
| Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! | |
| The shepherds cry, ‘Thy flocks are left a prey’— | |
| Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep, | |
| Who lost my heart while I preserv’d my sheep! | 80 |
| Pan came, and ask’d, ‘What magic caus’d my smart, | |
| Or what ill eyes malignant glances dart?’ | |
| What eyes but hers, alas, have power to move! | |
| And is there magic but what dwells in love? | |
| Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains! | 85 |
| I ’ll fly from shepherds, flocks, and flow’ry plains; | |
| From shepherds, flocks, and plains, I may remove, | |
| Forsake mankind, and all the world—but Love! | |
| I know thee, Love! on foreign mountains bred, | |
| Wolves gave thee suck, and savage tigers fed. | 90 |
| Thou wert from Ætna’s burning entrails torn, | |
| Got by fierce whirlwinds, and in thunder born! | |
| Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! | |
| Farewell, ye woods; adieu the light of day! | |
| One leap from yonder cliff shall end my pains, | 95 |
| No more, ye hills, no more resound my strains! | |
| Thus sung the shepherds till th’ approach of night, | |
| The skies yet blushing with departing light, | |
| When fallen dews with spangles deck’d the glade, | |
| And the low sun had lengthen’d ev’ry shade. | 100 |
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