With proper thoughts, and lively images:
Such as by Nature to the Ancients shewn,
Fancy improves and judgment makes your own:
For great men's fashions to be follow'd are,
Atho' disgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear.
Some in a polish'd style write Pastoral,
Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall;
Like some fair Shepherdess, the Sylvan Muse
Should wear those flow'rs her native fields produce;
And the true measure of the Shepherd's wit
Should, like his garb, be for the Country fit:
Yet must his pure and unaffected thought
More nicely than 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 troubles seem,
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;
Whose Muse did once, like thine, in plains delight;
Thine shall, like his, soon take a higher flight ;
Ver. 28. Sylvan Muse] From Boileau's Art of Poetry, Chant.
2. 1. 1. Pope seems to have corrected these lines.
So Larks, which first from lowly fields arise,
Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.
HAIL, sacred Bard! a Muse unknown before
Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore.
To our dark world thy shining page is shewn,
And Windsor'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 cast on common sand:
Toss'd up and down the glossy fragments lay,
And dress'd the rocky shelves, and pav'd the painted
Thy treasures next arriv'd: and now we boast
A nobler cargo on our barren coast:
From thy luxuriant Forest we receive
More lasting glories than the East can give. 15 Where'er we dip in thy delightful page,
What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engage!
Ver. 16. Where'er we dip] There are several lines in this copy of verses, which would not be endured in a common monthly magazine. So much is the public ear and public taste improved!
The pompous scenes in all their pride appear,
Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were.
Nor half so true the fair Lodona shews
The sylvan state that on her border grows,
While she the wand'ring shepherd entertains
With a new Windsor in her wat'ry plains;
Thy juster lays the lucid wave surpass,
The living scene is in the Muse's glass,
Nor sweeter notes the echoing forest cheer,
When Philomela sits and warbles there,
Than when you sing the greens and op'ning
glades,
And give us Harmony as well as Shades:
A Titian's hand might draw the grove, but
Can paint the grove, and add the Music too.
With vast variety thy pages shine;
A new creation starts in ev'ry line.
How sudden trees rise to the reader's sight,
And make a doubtful scene of shade and light,
And give at once the day, at once the night!
And here again what sweet confusion reigns,
In dreary deserts mix'd with painted plains!
And see! the deserts cast a pleasing gloom,
And shrubby heaths rejoice in purple bloom:
Whilst fruitful crops rise by their barren side,
And bearded groves display their annual pride.
Happy the man, who strings his tuneful lyre,
Where woods, and brooks, and breathing fields,
inspire!
Thrice happy thou! and worthy best to dwell
Amidst the rural joys you sing so 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 tempestuous main!
Border'd with weeds, and solitudes obscene!
Snatch me, ye gods! from these Atlantic shores,
And shelter me in Windsor's fragrant bow'rs;
Or to my much lov'd Isis' walks convey,
And on her flow'ry banks for ever lay.
Thence let me view the venerable scene,
The awful dome, the groves eternal green:
Where sacred Hough long found his fam'd retreat,
And brought the Muses to the sylvan seat,
Reform'd the wits, unlock'd the classic store, 60
And made that Music which was noise before.
There with illustrious Bards I spent my days,
Nor free from censure, nor unknown to praise,
Enjoy'd the blessings that his reign bestow'd,
Nor envy'd Windsor in the soft abode.
The golden minutes smoothly danc'd away,
And tuneful Bards beguil'd the tedious day:
They sung, nor sung in vain, with numbers fir'd.
That Maro taught, or Addison inspir'd.
Ev'n I essay'd to touch the trembling string:
Who could hear them, and not attempt to sing?
Rous'd from these dreams by thy commanding
I rise and wander through the field or plain;
Led by thy Muse from sport to sport I run,
Mark the stretch'd line, or hear the thund'ring
Ah! how I melt with pity, when I spy
On the cold earth the flutt'ring Pheasant lie;
His gaudy robes in dazzling lines appear,
And every feather shines and varies there.
Nor can I pass the generous courser by,
But while the prancing steed allures my eye,
He starts, he's gone! and now I see him fly
O'er hills and dales, and now I lose the course,
Nor can the rapid sight pursue the flying horse.
Oh could thy Virgil from his orb look down,
He'd view a courser that might match his own!
Fir'd with the sport, and eager for the chase,
Lodona's murmers stop me in the race.
Who can refuse Lodona's melting tale?
The soft complaint shall over time prevail;
The tale be told, when shades forsake her shore, The nymph be sung, when she can flow no more. Nor shall thy song, old Thames! forbear to shine, At once the subject and the song divine.
Peace, sung by thee, shall please ev'n Britons more Than all their shouts for victory before.
Oh! could Britannia imitate thy stream,
The world should tremble at her awful name:
From various springs divided waters glide,
In diff'rent colours roll a different tide,
Murmur along their crooked banks a while,
At once they murmer and enrich the Isle ;
A while distinct through many channels run,
But meet at last, and sweetly flow in one;
There joy to lose their long-distinguish'd names,
And make one glorious and immortal Thames.
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