The Works of Alexander Pope Part 50

Then might my voice thy list'ning ears employ, And I those kisses he receives enjoy.

And yet my numbers please the rural throng,[34]

Rough satyrs dance, and Pan applauds the song:[35] 50 The nymphs, forsaking ev'ry cave and spring,[36]

Their early fruit, and milk-white turtles bring![37]

Each am'rous nymph prefers her gifts in vain, On you their gifts are all bestowed again.[38]

For you the swains their fairest flow'rs design, 55 And in one garland all their beauties join; Accept the wreath which you deserve alone, In whom all beauties are comprised in one.

See what delights in sylvan scenes appear!

Descending G.o.ds have found Elysium here.[39] 60 In woods bright Venus with Adonis strayed; And chaste Diana haunts the forest-shade.

Come, lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours, When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow'rs; When weary reapers quit the sultry field,[40] 65 And crowned with corn their thanks to Ceres yield.

This harmless grove no lurking viper hides,[41]

But in my breast the serpent love abides.[42]

Here bees from blossoms sip the rosy dew, But your Alexis knows no sweets but you. 70 O deign to visit our forsaken seats, The mossy fountains, and the green retreats![43]

Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade; Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade; Where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise,[44] 75 And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.[45]

O! how I long with you to pa.s.s my days,[46]

Invoke the muses, and resound your praise!

Your praise the birds shall chant in ev'ry grove,[47]

And winds shall waft it to the pow'rs above.[48] 80 But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain,[49]

The wond'ring forests soon should dance[50] again, The moving mountains hear the pow'rful call, And headlong streams hang list'ning in their fall.[51]

But see, the shepherds shun the noon-day heat, 85 The lowing herds to murm'ring brooks retreat,[52]

To closer shades the panting flocks remove; Ye G.o.ds! and is there no relief for love?[53]

But soon the sun with milder rays descends To the cool ocean, where his journey ends:[54] 90 On me love's fiercer flames for ever prey,[55]

By night he scorches, as he burns by day.[56]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The scene of this Pastoral by the river side, suitable to the heat of the season: the time noon.--POPE.]

[Footnote 2: Dr. Samuel Garth, author of the Dispensary, was one of the first friends of the author, whose acquaintance with him began at fourteen or fifteen. Their friendship continued from the year 1703 to 1718, which was that of his death.--POPE.

He was a man of the sweetest disposition, amiable manners, and universal benevolence. All parties, at a time when party violence was at a great height, joined in praising and loving him. One of the most exquisite pieces of wit ever written by Addison, is a defence of Garth against the Examiner, 1710. It is unfortunate that this second Pastoral, the worst of the four, should be inscribed to the best judge of all Pope's four friends to whom they were addressed.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 3: This was one of the pa.s.sages submitted to Walsh.

"Objection," remarks Pope, "against the parenthesis, _he seeks no better name_. Quaere. Would it be anything better to say,

A shepherd's boy, who sung for love, not fame, etc.

Or,

A shepherd's boy, who fed an amorous flame.

Quaere, which of all these is the best, or are none of them good." Walsh preferred the parenthesis in the text. "It is Spenser's way," he said, "and I think better than the others."]

[Footnote 4: Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar:

A shepherd boy (no better do him call) Led forth his flock.--BOWLES.

Pope's second Pastoral is an ostensible imitation of Spenser's first eclogue, which is devoted to a lover's complaint, but though Pope has echoed some of the sentiments of Spenser, and appropriated an occasional line, his style has little resemblance to that of his model.]

[Footnote 5: "An inaccurate word," says Warton, "instead of Thames;" and rendered confusing by the fact that there is a real river Thame, which is a tributary of the Thames. Milton has used the same licence, and speaks of the "royal towered Thame" in his lines on the English rivers.]

[Footnote 6: Originally thus in the MS.:

There to the winds Headrigg plained his hapless love, And Amaryllis filled the vocal grove.--WARBURTON.]

[Footnote 7: Dryden's Theodore and Honoria:

The winds within the quiv'ring branches played, And dancing trees a mournful music made.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 8: Ver. 1, 2, 3, 4, were thus printed in the first edition:

A faithful swain, whom Love had taught to sing, Bewailed his fate beside a silver spring; Where gentle Thames his winding waters leads Through verdant forests, and through flow'ry meads.--POPE.]

[Footnote 9: Dryden's Virg. Ecl. viii. 3:

To which the savage lynxes list'ning stood; The rivers stood on heaps, and stopped the running flood.

Milton, Comus, 494:

Thyrsis, whose artful strains have oft delayed The puddling brook to hear his madrigal.--WAKEFIELD.

Garth, in his Dispensary, canto iv., says that, when Prior sings,

The banks of Rhine a pleased attention show, And silver Sequana forgets to flow.]

[Footnote 10: Milton, Comus:

That dumb things shall be moved to sympathise.--STEEVENS.

In the tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas, Congreve says of the tigers and wolves, that

They dumb distress and new compa.s.sion show.]

[Footnote 11: Virg. Ecl. vii. 60:

Jupiter et laeto descendet plurimus imbri.--POPE.

In the original ma.n.u.script the couplet was slightly different:

Relenting Naads wept in ev'ry bow'r, And Jove consented in a silent show'r.

Pope. "Objection, that the Naads weeping in bowers is not so proper, being water nymphs, and that the word _consented_ is doubted by some to whom I have shown these verses. Alteration:

The Naads wept in ev'ry wat'ry bow'r, And Jove relented in a silent show'r.

Quaere. Which of these do you like best?" Walsh. "The first. Upon second thoughts I think the second is best." Pope ended by adopting the first line of the second version, and the second line of the first.]

[Footnote 12: This is taken from Virg. Ecl. viii. 12.--WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's translation, ver. 17: