For great men's fashions to be follow'd are,
Altho' disgraceful 'tis their cloaths to wear.
Some in a polish'd style write Pastoral,
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall,
Like some fair shepherdess, the sylvan Muse,
Deck'd in those flow'rs her native fields produce,
With modest charms would in plain neatness please,
But seems a dowdy in the courtly dress,
Whose aukward finery allures us less.
But the true measure of the shepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the country fit;
Yet mud his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely then the common swains be wrought:
So, with becoming art, the Players dress
In silks, the shepherd, and the shepherdess;
Yet still unchang'd the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely russet of the swain.
Your rural Muse appears to justify
The long-lost graces of Simplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our sense
With virgin charms, and native excellence.
Yet long her modesty those charms conceal'd,
Till by men's envy to the world reveal'd,
For Wits industrious to their trouble seem,
And needs will envy, what they must esteem.
Live, and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate
Which wou'd, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait;
Whose Muse did once, like thine, in plains delight;
Thine shall, like his, soon take a higher flight,
So Larks, which first from lowly fields arise,
Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.
Altho' disgraceful 'tis their cloaths to wear.
Some in a polish'd style write Pastoral,
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall,
Like some fair shepherdess, the sylvan Muse,
Deck'd in those flow'rs her native fields produce,
With modest charms would in plain neatness please,
But seems a dowdy in the courtly dress,
Whose aukward finery allures us less.
But the true measure of the shepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the country fit;
Yet mud his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely then the common swains be wrought:
So, with becoming art, the Players dress
In silks, the shepherd, and the shepherdess;
Yet still unchang'd the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely russet of the swain.
Your rural Muse appears to justify
The long-lost graces of Simplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our sense
With virgin charms, and native excellence.
Yet long her modesty those charms conceal'd,
Till by men's envy to the world reveal'd,
For Wits industrious to their trouble seem,
And needs will envy, what they must esteem.
Live, and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate
Which wou'd, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait;
Whose Muse did once, like thine, in plains delight;
Thine shall, like his, soon take a higher flight,
So Larks, which first from lowly fields arise,
Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.
b 2
To
