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PASTORALS.
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I.
SPRING: OR, DAMON.
••>O<••
TO SIR WILLLIAM TRUMBALL.
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 through trembling osiers play,
And Albion's cliffs resound the rural lay.
You that too wise for pride, too good for pow'r,
Enjoy the glory to be great no more,
And carrying with you all the world can boast,
To all the world illustriously are lost!
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,
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:
The dawn now blushing on the mountain's side,
Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus reply'd.
Daph. 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?
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 through trembling osiers play,
And Albion's cliffs resound the rural lay.
You that too wise for pride, too good for pow'r,
Enjoy the glory to be great no more,
And carrying with you all the world can boast,
To all the world illustriously are lost!
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,
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:
The dawn now blushing on the mountain's side,
Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus reply'd.
Daph. 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?
