PASTORALS.
21
Presaging future woe, when, for our crimes,
We lost Albino, pledge of peaceful times,
Fair boast of this fair Island, darling joy
Of Nobles high, and every shepherd-boy? 40
No joyous pipe was hear'd, no flocks were seen,
Nor shepherd found upon the grassy green,
No cattle graz'd the field, nor drank the flood,
No birds were hear'd to warble through the wood. 44
In yonder gloomy grove out-stretch'd he lay,
His lovely limbs upon the dampy clay;
On his cold cheek the rosy hue decay'd,
And, o'er his lips, the deadly blue display'd: 48
Bleating around him ly his plaintive sheep;
And mourning shepherds come, in crowds, to weep.
Young Buckhurst comes: and, is there no redress?
As if the grave regarded our distress! 52
The tender virgins come, to tears yet new,
And give, aloud, the lamentations due.
The pious mother comes, with grief opprest:
Ye trees, and conscious fountains, can attest 56
With what sad accents, and what piercing cries,
She fill'd the grove, and importun'd the skies,
And every star upbraided with his death,
When, in her widowed arms, devoid of breath, 60
We lost Albino, pledge of peaceful times,
Fair boast of this fair Island, darling joy
Of Nobles high, and every shepherd-boy? 40
No joyous pipe was hear'd, no flocks were seen,
Nor shepherd found upon the grassy green,
No cattle graz'd the field, nor drank the flood,
No birds were hear'd to warble through the wood. 44
In yonder gloomy grove out-stretch'd he lay,
His lovely limbs upon the dampy clay;
On his cold cheek the rosy hue decay'd,
And, o'er his lips, the deadly blue display'd: 48
Bleating around him ly his plaintive sheep;
And mourning shepherds come, in crowds, to weep.
Young Buckhurst comes: and, is there no redress?
As if the grave regarded our distress! 52
The tender virgins come, to tears yet new,
And give, aloud, the lamentations due.
The pious mother comes, with grief opprest:
Ye trees, and conscious fountains, can attest 56
With what sad accents, and what piercing cries,
She fill'd the grove, and importun'd the skies,
And every star upbraided with his death,
When, in her widowed arms, devoid of breath, 60
She
