Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

H

VERSE.

:

:

*

effay

APPY that author, whose correct
Repairs so well our old Horatian way:
And happy you, who (by propitious fate)
On great Apollo's facred standard wait,
And with strict discipline instructed right,
Have learn'd to use your arms before you fight.
But fince the press, the pulpit, and the stage,
Conspire to cenfure and expose our age:
Provok'd too far, we resolutely must,
To the few virtues that we have, be juft.

* John Sheffield duke of Buckinghamshire.

For who have long'd, or who have labour'd more
To fearch the treasures of the Roman store;
Or dig in Grecian mines for purer ore ?

}

The nobleft fruits transplanted in our ifle
With early hope and fragrant bløffoms smile.
Familiar Ovid tender thoughts inspires,
And nature feconds all his foft defires :
Theocritus does now to us belong;
And Albion's rocks repeat his rural fong.
Who has not heard how Italy was blest,
Above the Medes, above the wealthy East?
Or Gallus' fong, so tender and so true,
As ev'n Lycoris might with pity view !
When mourning nymphs attend their Daphnis' hearse,
Who does not weep that reads the moving verse !
But hear, oh hear, in what exalted strains
Sicilian Muses through these happy plains
Proclaim Saturnian times---our own Apollo reigns!
When France had breath'd, after intestine broils,
And peace and conquest crown'd her foreign toils,
There (cultivated by a royal hand)

}

Learning grew faft, and spread, and blest the land;
The choiceft books that Rome or Greece have known,
Her excellent translators made her own :

And Europe still confiderably gains,
Both by their good example and their pains.
From hence our generous emulation came,
We undertook, and we perform'd the fame.
But now, we fshew the world a nobler way,
And in tranflated verse do more than they;

:

Serene

:

« ПредишнаНапред »