Idly 'twill waste thee, Thenot, the whole day, Shouldst thou give ear to all my grief can say. Thine eyes will wander; and the heifers' lambs, In loud complaints, require their absent dams.

TH. See Lightfoot; he shall tend them close: and I, 'Tween whiles, across the plains will glance mine eye.

Where to begin I know not, where to end. Does there one smiling hour my youth attend? Though few my days, as well my follies show, Yet are those days all clouded o'er with wo: No happy gleam of sunshine doth appear, My low'ring sky and wintry months to cheer. My piteous plight in yonder naked tree, Which bears the thunder-fear too plain, I see: Quite destitute it stands of shelter kind, The mark of storms, and sport of every wind; The riven trunk feels not the approach of spring; Nor birds among the leafless branches sing: No more, beneath thy shade, shall shepherds throng With jocund tale, or pipe, or pleasing song. Ill-fated tree! and more ill-fated I! From thee, from me, alike the shepherds fly.

TH. Sure thou in hapless hour of time wast born, When blighting mildews spoil the rising corn, Or blasting winds o'er blossoms' hedge-rows pass, To kill the promis'd fruits, and scorch the grass; Or when the moon, by wizard charm'd, foreshows Blood-stain'd in foul eclipse, impending woes. Untimely born, ill luck beholds thee fill.

And can there, Thenot, be a greater ill?

TH. Nor fox, nor wolf, nor rat among our sheep: From thee good shepherd's care his flock may keep; Against ill luck, alas! all forecast fails; Nor toil by day, nor watch by night, avails.

Ah me, the while! ah me, the luckless day! Ah luckless lad! befits me more to say. Unhappy hour! when fresh in youthful bud, I left, Sabrina fair, thy silv'ry flood. Ah filly I! more filly than my sheep, Which on thy flow'ry banks I wont to keep. Sweet are thy banks; oh, when shall I once more With ravish'd eyes review thine am'ld flore? When, in the crystal of thy waters, scan Each feature faded, and my colour van? When shall I see my hut, the small abode Myself did raise and cover o'er with sod? Small though it be, a mean and humble cell, Yet is there room for peace and me to dwell.

TH. And what enticement charm'd thee far away From thy lov'd home, and led thy heart astray?

A lewd desire strange lands and swains to know. Ah me! that every I should covet wo. With wand'ring feet unblest, and fond of fame, I sought I know not what besides a name.

TH. Or, foath to say, didst thou not hither come In search of gains more plenty than at home? A rolling stone is ever bare of moss; And, to their coif, green years old proverbs cross.

Small need there was, in random search of gain, To drive my pining flock athwart the plain To distant Cam. Fine gain at length, I trow, To hoard up to myself such deal of wo! My sheep quite spent through travel and ill fare, And like their keeper ragged grown and bare,

The damp cold green sward for my nightly bed, And some flaut willow's trunk to rest my head. Hard is to bear of pinching cold the pain; And hard is want to the unpac'd swain; But neither want, nor pinching cold, is hard, To blasting storms of calumny compar'd: Unkind as hail it falls; the pelting snow'r Destroys the tender herb and budding flow'r.

TH. Slander we shepherds count the vilest wrong: And what wounds sores than an evil tongue?

Untoward lads, the wanton imps of Spite Make mock of all the ditties I entitle. In vain, O Colinet, thy pipe, so shrill, Charms every vale, and gladdens every hill: In vain thou seek'st the coverings of the grove, In the cool shade to fing the pains of love: Sing what thou wilt, ill-nature will prevail; And every elf hath skill enough to rail. But yet, though poor and artless be my vein, Menalcas seems to like my simple strain: And while that he delighteth in my song, Which to the good Menalcas doth belong, Nor night nor day shall my rude music cease; I ask no more, so I Menalcas please.

TH. Menalcas, lord of these fair fertile plains, Preserves the sheep, and o'er the shepherds reigns; For him our yearly wakes and feasts we hold, And choose the fairest firstlings from the fold; He, good to all who good deserves, shall give Thy flock to feed, and thee at ease to live, Shall curb the malice of unbridled tongues, And bounteously reward thy rural songs.

First then shall lightsome birds forget to fly, The briny ocean turn to pastures dry, And every rapid river cease to flow, Ere I unmindful of Menalcas grow.

TH. This night thy care with me forget, and fold Thy flock with mine, to ward th' injurious cold. New milk, and clouted cream, mild cheese and curd, With some remaining fruit of last year's board, Shall be our ev'n'ing fare; and, for the night, Sweet herbs and nuts, which gentle sleep invite: And now behold the sun's departing ray, O'er yonder hill, the sign of ebbing day: With songs the jovial hinds return from plow; And unyok'd heifers, loitering homeward, low.

Mr Pope's Pastorals next appeared, but in a different dress from those of Spenser and Phillips; for he has discarded all antiquated words, drawn his swains more modern and polite, and made his numbers exquisitely harmonious: his eclogues therefore may be called better poems, but not better pastorals. We shall infer the eclogue he has inscribed to Mr Wycherly, the beginning of which is in imitation of Virgil's first pastoral.

Beneath the shade a spreading beech displays, Hylas and Ægion sung their rural lays: This mourn'd a faithless, that an abler love, And Delia's name and Doris fill'd the grove. Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring; Hylas and Ægion's rural lays I sing. Thou, whom the nine with Plautus' wit inspire, The art of Terence, and Menander's fire: Whole senate instructs us, and whose humour charms, Whole judgement sways us, and whose spirit warms!

Oh Part II.

Oh, kill'd in nature! see the hearts of swains, Their artless passions, and their tender pains. Now setting Phœbus thone fervently bright, And fleecy clouds were streak'd with purple light; When tuneful Hylas, with melodious moan, Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan. Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! To Delia's ear the tender notes convey. As some sad turtle his lost love deplores, And with deep murmurs fills the founding shores; Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn, Alike unheard, unprofit'd, and forlorn. Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! For her the feather'd quires neglect their song; For her, the limes their pleasing shades deny For her, the lilies hang their head and die. Ye flow'rs, that droop forsaken by the spring; Ye birds, that left by summer cease to sing; Ye trees, that fade when autumn's heats remove; Say, is not absence death to those who love? Go, gentle gales, and bear thy sighs away! Cur'd be the fields that cau'd my Delia's stay: Fade ev'ry blossom, wither ev'ry tree, Die ev'ry flow'r and perish all but she. What have I said? where'er my Delia flies, Let spring attend, and sudden flow'rs arise; Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from ev'ry thorn. Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! The birds shall cease to tune their ev'ning long, The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move, And streams to murmur, ere I cease to love. Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain, Not balmy sleep to lab'ring faint with pain, Not flow'rs to larks, or sunshine to the bee, Are half so charming as thy flight to me. Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! Come, Delia, come! ah, why this long delay? Through rocks and caves the name of Delia sounds;