I Pantane Lesvos
RECOMMENDATORY POEMS. 1860
To Mr. POPE, on his PASTORALS.
N thofe more dull, as more cenforious days,
When few dare give, and fewer merit praise,
A Mufe fincere, that never Flattery knew,
Pays what to friendship and defert is due.
Young, yet judicious; in your verse are found
Art ftrengthening Nature, Senfe improv'd by Sound.
Unlike thofe Wits, whofe numbers glide along
So fmooth, no thought e'er interrupts the song:
Laboriously enervate they appear,
And write not to the head, but to the ear:
Our minds unmov'd and unconcern'd they lull,
And are at best moft mufically dull :
So purling ftreams with even murmurs creep,
And hush the heavy hearers into sleep.
As smootheft speech is most deceitful found,
The smootheft numbers oft are empty found.
But Wit and Judgment join at once in you,
Sprightly as Youth, as Age confummate too :
Your ftrains are regularly bold, and please
With unforc'd care, and unaffected ease,
With proper thoughts, and lively images:
Such as by Nature to the Ancients fhewn,
Fancy improves, and judgment makes your own:
For great men's fashions to be follow'd are,
Although difgraceful 'tis their cloaths to wear,
Some in a polish'd style write Pastoral,
Arcadia fpeaks the language of the Mall.
Like fome fair Shepherdefs, the Sylvan Muse
Should wear thofe flowers her native fields produce;
And the true meafure of the fhepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the Country fit:
Yet muft his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely than the common fwain's be wrought,
So, with becoming art, the Players dress
In filks the fhepherd, and the fhepherdess;
Yet ftill unchang`d the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely ruffet of the fwain.
Your rural Mufe appears to juftify
The long-loft graces of fimplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our fenfe
With virgin charms, and native excellence.
Yet long her Modefty thofe charms conceal'd;
Till by men's Envy to the world reveal'd;
For Wits induftrious to their trouble feem,
And needs will envy what they must esteem.
Live, and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate,
Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait;
Whofe Mufe did once, like thine, in plains delight,
Thine fhall, like his, foon take a higher flight;
So larks, which first from lowly fields arise,
Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.
To Mr. POPE, on his WINDSOR-FOREST.
AIL! facred Bard! a Muse unknown before
Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic fhore.
To our dark world thy fhining page is shown,
And Windfor's gay retreat becomes our own.
The Eastern pomp had just bespoke our care,
And India pour'd her gaudy treasures here:
A various spoil adorn'd our naked land,
The Pride of Persia glitter'd on our strand,
And China's Earth was caft on common fand:
Tofs'd up and down the gloffy fragments lay,
And dress'd the rocky fhelves, and pav'd the painted
Thy treasures next arriv'd: and now we boast
A nobler cargo on our barren coaft:
From thy luxuriant Foreft we receive
More lafting glories than the East can give.
Where'er we dip in thy delightful page,
What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engage!
The pompous fcenes in all their pride appear,
Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were.
Nor half fo true the fair Lodona fhows
The fylvan ftate that on her border grows,
While fhe the wond'ring fhepherd entertains
With a new Windfor in her watery plains:
The jufter lays the lucid wave furpass,
The living scene is in the Muse's glass,
Nor fweeter notes the echoing Forests chear,
When Philomela fits and warbles there,
Than when you fing the greens and opening glades,
And give us Harmony as well as Shades :
A Titian's hand might draw the grove; but you
Can paint the grove, and add the Mufic too.
With vast variety thy pages fhine;
A new creation starts in every line.
How fudden trees rife to the reader's fight,
And make a doubtful scene of fhade and light,
And give at once the day, at once the night!
And here again what fweet confufion reigns,
In dreary deferts mix'd, with painted plains!
And fee! the deferts caft a pleasing gloom,
And shrubby heaths rejoice in purple bloom:
Whilft fruitful crops rife by their barren fide,
And bearded groves difplay their annual pride.
Happy the man, who ftrings his tuneful lyre
Where woods, and brooks, and breathing fields infpire!
Thrice happy you! and worthy best to dwell
Amidst the rural joys, you fing fo well.
I in a cold, and in a barren clime,
Cold as my thought, and barren as my rhyme,
Here on the Western beach attempt to chime.
O joyless flood! O rough tempeftuous main !
Border'd with weeds, and folitudes obfcene!
Snatch me, ye Gods! from these Atlantic fhores,
And shelter me in Windfor's fragrant bowers;
Or to my much-lov'd Ifis' walk convey,
And on her flowery banks for ever lay.
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