SPRING:

THE FIRST PASTORAL, OR, DAMON.

TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBAL .

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;

• These Pastorals were written at the age of sixteen, and then passed through the hands of Mr. Walsh, Mr. Wycherley, G. Granville afterwards Lord Lansdowne, Sir William Trumbal, Dr. Garth, Lord Halifax, Lord Somers, Mr. Mainwaring, and others. All these gave our author the greatest encouragement, and particularly Mr. Walsh, whom Mr. Dryden, in his postcript to Virgil, calls the best critic of his age. "The Author (says he) seems to have a particular genius for this kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds his years. He has taken very freely from the ancients. But what he has mixed of his own with theirs is no way inferior to what he has taken from them. It is not flattery at all to say, that Virgil had written nothing so good at his age. His preface is very judicious and learned." Letter to Mr. Wycherley, Ap. 1705. The Lord Lansdowne, about the same time, mentioning the youth of our poet, says (in a printed letter of the character of Mr. Wycherley,) "that if he goes on as he hath begun in the pastoral way, as Virgil first tried his strength, we may hope to see English poetry vie with the Roman," &c. Notwithstanding the early time of their production, the author esteemed these as the most correct in the versification, and musical in the numbers, of all his works. The reason for his labouring them into so much softness was, doubtless, that this sort of poetry derives almost its whole beauty from a natural ease of thought and smoothness of verse; whereas that of most other kinds consists in the strength and fulness of both. In a letter of his to Mr. Walsh about this time, we find an enumeration of several niceties in versification, which perhaps have never been strictly observed in any English poem, except in these Pastorals. They were not printed till 1709.

b Our author's friendship with this gentleman commenced at very unequal years; he was under sixteen, but Sir William above sixty, and had lately resigned his employment of Secretary of State to King William.

"Prima Syracosio dignata est ludere versu
Nostra, nec erubuit sylvas habitare, Thalia."

This is the general exordium and opening of the Pastorals, in imitation of the sixth of Virgil, which some have therefore not improbably thought to

B

Let vernal airs through trembling osiers play,
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!

d

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 chaunt to the forsaken groves,
But charm'd to silence, listens while she sings,
And all the 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 :
The dawn now blushing on the mountain's side,
Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus replied.

DAPHNIS.

Hear how the birds, on every blooming spray, With joyous music wake the dawning day! Why sit we mute, when early linnets sing, When warbling Philomel salutes the spring? Why sit we sad, when Phosphor shines so clear, And lavish nature paints the purple year?

STREPHON.

Sing then, and Damon shall attend the strain,
While yon slow oxen turn the furrow'd plain.
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.

have been the first originally. In the beginnings of the other three Pastorals, he imitates expressly those which now stand first of the three chief poets in this kind, Spenser, Virgil, Theocritus.

A shepherd's boy (he seeks no better name)-
Beneath the shade a spreading beech displays,
Thyrsis, the music of that murmuring spring,-

are manifestly imitations of

"-A shepherd's boy (no better do him call)"
"Tityre, tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi."

“ Αδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ὁ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα.”

d Sir W. Trumbal was born in Windsor-forest, to which he retreated after he had resigned the post of Secretary of State to King William III

DAPHNIS.

And I this bowl, where wanton ivy twines,
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!

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.

STREPHON.

Inspire me, Phoebus, in my Delia's praise, 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 ".

DAPHNIS.

O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,
And make my tongue victorious as her eyes:
No lambs or sheep for victims I'll impart,
Thy victim, Love, shall be the shepherd's heart.

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, And by that laugh the willing fair is found.

DAPHNIS.

The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green, She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen

"Lenta quibus torno facili superaddita vitis,

Diffusos hederâ vestit pallente corymbos."-VIRG.

The Shepherd's hesitation at the name of the Zodiac imitates that in Virgil,

"Et quis fuit alter,

Descripsit radio totum qui gentibus orbem?"

Literally from Virgil,

"Alternis dicetis, amant alterna Camœnæ :

Et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos;

Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc formosissimus annus."

George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, known for his Poems, most of which he composed very young, and proposed Waller as his model. h" Pascite taurum,

Qui cornu petat, et pedibus jam spargat arenam.”—VIRG.

Tell me but this, and I'll disclaim the prize,
And give the conquest to thy Sylvia's eyes.

DAPHNIS.

Nay tell me first, in what more happy fields The thistle springs, to which the lily yields1 : And then a nobler prize I will resign;

For Sylvia, charming Sylvia, shall be thine.

DAMON.

Cease to contend, for, Daphnis, I decree, The bowl to Strephon, and the lamb to thee: Blest swains, whose nymphs in every grace excel; 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. For see! the gathering flocks to shelter tend, And from the Pleiads fruitful showers descend.

SUMMER:

THE SECOND PASTORAL, OR, ALEXIS.

TO DR. GARTH.

A SHEPHERD'S boy (he seeks no better name)
Led forth his flocks along the silver Thame,
Where dancing sun-beams on the waters play'd",
And verdant alders form'd a quivering shade.
Soft as he mourn'd, the streams forgot to flow,
The flocks around a dumb compassion show,

Alludes to the device of the Scots monarchs, the thistle, worn by Queen Anne; and to the arms of France, the fleur-de-lys.

riddles are in imitation of those in Virg. Ecl. iii.

"Dic, quibus in terris inscripti nomina Regum
Nascantur Flores, et Phyllida solus habeto."

The two

m The scene of this pastoral by the river side, suitable to the heat of the season; the time, noon.