But now Dan Phoebus gains the middle skie, For well may Freedom erst so dearly won, Enjoy, poor imps! enjoy your sportive trade, See in each sprite some various bent appear! ELEGY, Describing the sorrow of an ingenuous mind, on the melancholy event of a licentious amour. WHY mourns my friend? why weeps his downcast eye, That eye where mirth, where fancy us'd to shine? That wins the friend, or that enchants the fair? And my poor wounded bosom bleeds the more. "For oh! that Nature on my birth had frown'd, Or Fortune fix'd me to some lowly cell; Those sauntering on the green, with jocund leer Then had my bosom 'scap'd this fatal wound, Salute the stranger passing on his way; In pastry kings and queens th' allotted mite to Nor had I bid these vernal sweets farewell. "But led by Fortune's hand, her darling child, My youth her vain licentious bliss admir'd: In Fortune's train the syren Flattery smil'd, And rashly hallow'd all her queen inspir'd. "Of folly studious, e'en of vices vain, Ah vices! gilded by the rich and gay! I chas'd the guileless daughters of the plain, Expense, and art, and toil, united strove; School'd in the science of love's mazy wiles, I bade my words their wonted softness wear Feels not the sharpness of a pang like mine. I sigh in shades, and sicken at the Sun Amid the dreary gloom of night, I cry, But foes that triumph, or but friends that mourn 'Alas! no more that joyous morn appears That led the tranquil hours of spotless fame; For I have steep'd a father's couch in tears, And ting'd a mother's glowing cheek with shame. "The vocal birds that raise their matin strain, If through the garden's flowery tribes I stray, Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure, Hope not to find delight in us, they say, For we are spotless, Jessy; we are pure. "Ye flowers! that well reproach a nymph so frail; Now the grave old alarm the gentler young; And all my fame's abhorr'd contagion flee: Trembles each lip, and falters every tongue, That bids the morn propitious smile on me. "Thus for your sake I shun each human eye; I bid the sweets of blooming youth adieu; To die I languish, but I dread to die, Lest my sad fate should nourish pangs for you. Raise me from earth; the pains of want remove, And let me silent seek some friendly shore: There only, banish'd from the form I love, My weeping virtue shall relapse no more Be but my friend; I ask no dearer name; Be such the meed of some more artful fair; Nor could it heal my peace, or chase my shame, That pity gave, what love refus'd to share. 'Force not my tongue to ask its scanty bread; Nor hurl thy Jessy to the vulgar crew; Not such the parent's board at which I fed! Not such the precept from his lips I drew! "Haply, when Age has silver'd o'er my hair, Malice may learn to scorn so mean a spoil; Envy may slight a face no longer fair; And pity, welcome, to my native soil.' "She spoke nor was I born of savage race; Nor could these hands a niggard boon assign; Grateful she clasp'd me in a last embrace, And vow'd to waste her life in prayers for mine. "I saw her foot the lofty bark ascend; I saw her breast with every passion heave; I left her-torn from every earthly friend; "-Brief let me be; the fatal storm arose; The billows rag'd, the pilot's art was vain; O'er the tall mast the circling surges close; My Jessy-floats upon the watery plain! "And see my youth's impetuous fires decay; Seek not to stop Reflection's bitter tear; But warn the frolic, and instruct the gay, From Jessy floating on her watery bier!" A PASTORAL BALLAD, IN FOUR PARTS. 1743. Arbusta humilesque myrice.-Virg. I. ABSENCE. YE shepherds so cheerful and gay, Oh! call the poor wanderers home. Nor talk of the change that ye find; None once was so watchful as I; I have left my dear Phyllis behind. Now I know what it is, to have strove With the torture of doubt and desire; What it is to admire and to love, And to leave her we love and admire Ah! lead forth my flock in the morn, And the damps of each evening repel; Alas! I am faint and forlorn : -I have bade my dear Phyllis farewell. I priz'd ev'ry hour that went by, But why do I languish in vain; Why wander thus pensively here? Oh! why did I come from the plain, Where I fed on the smiles of my dear? They tell me, my favorite maid, The pride of that valley, is flown; Alas! where with her I have stray'd, I could wander with pleasure, alone. When forc'd the fair nymph to forego, What anguish I felt at my heart! Yet I thought-but it might not be so'Twas with pain that she saw me depart. She gaz'd, as I slowly withdrew; My path I could hardly discern; I thought that she bade me return. Is happy, nor heard to repine. II. HOPE. My banks they are furnish'd with bees, I seldom have met with a loss, Not a pine in my grove is there seen, But a sweet-brier entwines it around. One would think she might like to retire With the lilac to render it gay! To prune the wild branches away. From the plains, from the woodlands and groves, In a concert so soft and so clear, As she may not be found to resign. I have found out a gift for my fair; I have found where the wood-pigeons breed: But let me that plunder forbear, She will say 'twas a barbarous deed. For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd, Who would rob a poor bird of its young: And I lov'd her the more when I heard Such tenderness fall from her tongue. I have heard her with sweetness unfold How that pity was due to-a dove : That it ever attended the bold; And she call'd it the sister of love. But her words such a pleasure convey, So much I her accents adore, Let her speak, and whatever she say, Methinks I should love her the more. Can a bosom so gentle remain Unmov'd when her Corydon sighs? Will a nymph that is fond of the plain, These plains and this valley despise? Dear regions of silence and shade! Soft scenes of contentment and ease? Where I could have pleasingly stray'd, If aught, in her absence, could please But where does my Phyllida stray? And where are her grots and her bowers? Are the groves and the valleys as gay, And the shepherds as gentle as ours? The groves may perhaps be as fair, And the face of the valleys as fine; The swains may in manners compare, But their love is not equal to mine. III. SOLICITUDE. WHY will you my passion reprove! With her mien she enamours the brave, O you that have been of her train, For when Paridel tries, in the dance O how with one trivial glance, Might she ruin the peace of my mind! In ringlets he dresses his hair, And his crook is bestudded around; "Tis his with mock passion to glow, With the notes of his charmer to vie; How they vary their accents in vain, Repine at her triumphs, and die. To the grove or the garden he strays, Then the lily no longer is white; The rose is depriv'd of its bloom; Then the violets die with despite, And the woodbines give up their perfume." Thus glide the soft numbers along, And he fancies no shepherd his peer; -Yet I never should envy the song, Were not Phyllis to lend it an ear. Let his crook be with hyacinths bound, IV. DISAPPOINTMENT. YE shepherds, give ear to my lay, And take no more heed of my sheep; They have nothing to do but to stray; I have nothing to do but to weep. Yet do not my folly reprove; She was fair-and my passion begun, She smil'd-and I could not but love; She is faithless-and I am undone. Perhaps I was void of all thought. Perhaps it was plain to foresee, That a nymph so complete would be sought She is faithless, and I am undone ; Ye that witness the woes I endure, Let reason instruct you to shun What it cannot instruct you to cure Amid nymphs of a higher degree: Alas! from the day that we met, What hope of an end to my woes? When I cannot endure to forget The glance that undid my repose. The flower, and the shrub, and the tree, The sound of a murmuring stream, Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme. High transports are shown to the sight, But we're not to find them our own; Fate never bestow'd such delight As I with my, Phyllis had known. O ye woods, spread your branches apace; I would hide with the beasts of the chase; Erewhile, in sportive circles round She saw him wheel, and frisk, and bound; Pleas'd on his various freaks to dwell, She tells with what delight he stood To trace his features in the flood; Then skipp'd aloof with quaint amaze, And then drew near again to gaze. She tells me how with eager speed His every frolic, light as air, But knows my Delia, timely wise, How soon this blameless era flies? While violence and craft succeed; Unfair design, and ruthless deed! Soon would the vine his wounds deplore. No more those bowers might Strephon see Each wayward passion soon would tear Then mourn not the decrees of Fate, That gave his life so short a date; And I will join thy tenderest sighs, To think that youth so swiftly flies THOMAS GRAY. composed several years before. It met with immediate appreciation, went rapidly through eleven editions, and was translated into Latin. And its popularity has never waned. In 1757 he published his “Pindaric Odes." The same year he declined the Laureate-ship, which had become vacant by the death of Cibber. In 1768 he was appointed to the chair of Modern His THOMAS GRAY was born in London, December | 26, 1716. He was educated at Eton and at Cambridge. At Eton he became intimate with Horace Walpole, and after their college-days were over they travelled together on the Continent. Gray studied law for a while; but after the death of his father, in 1741, he gave it up and went to Cambridge to take the doctor's degree. There he spent the greater part of history at Cambridge. The professorship had been life. His passion was for books and for natural held as a sinecure, but Gray prepared to fulfil scenery. The one he found in the great libra- its duties. His good intentions, however, were ries, and for the other he rambled about in Wales, defeated by his natural indolence and by declinScotland, and the lake district of England. In ing health. He died of gout, on July 30, 1771, his travels he always carried a note-book, and and was buried at Stoke-Pogis, Buckinghamhis letters to his literary friends were filled with shire, in the churchyard which is the scene of descriptions of what he saw. In 1747 he pub- his Elegy. Gray wrote but little poetry (nearly lished his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton all his poems are in this collection), but what he College," whose closing lines are one of the did write is singularly perfect. In proportion most familiar of all quotations. In 1751 his to its quantity, it has probably furnished more "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" was pub-popular quotations than the works of any other lished anonymously. Portions of it had been writer of English verse. ON VICISSITUDE. Now the golden morn aloft New-born flocks, in rustic dance, Yesterday the sullen year And o'er the cheek of sorrow throw While hope prolongs our happier hour; Still, where rosy pleasure leads, See the wretch, that long has tost Humble Quiet builds her cell |