The Works of Alexander Pope Part 54

Thou,[6] whom the nine, with Plautus' wit inspire, The art of Terence, and Menander's fire; Whose sense instructs us,[7] and whose humour charms, Whose judgment sways us, and whose spirit[8] warms! 10 Oh, skilled in nature![9] see the hearts of swains, Their artless pa.s.sions, and their tender pains.[10]

Now setting Phoebus shone serenely bright, And fleecy clouds were streaked with purple light; When tuneful Hylas with melodious moan, 15 Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan.[11]

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away![12]

To Delia's ear the tender notes convey.

As some sad turtle[13] his lost love deplores And with deep murmurs fills the sounding sh.o.r.es; 20 Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn, Alike unheard, unpitied, and forlorn.

Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along!

For her, the feathered quires neglect their song: For her, the limes their pleasing shades deny; 25 For her, the lilies hang their heads 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-heats remove, Say, is not absence death to those who love?[14] 30 Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away!

Cursed be the fields that cause my Delia's stay; Fade ev'ry blossom, wither ev'ry tree,[15]

Die ev'ry flower, and perish all but she.

What have I said? where'er my Delia flies, 35 Let spring attend, and sudden flow'rs arise; Let op'ning roses knotted oaks adorn,[16]

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 song, 40 The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move, And streams to murmur, ere I cease to love.[17]

Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain,[18]

Not balmy sleep to lab'rers faint with pain,[19]

Not show'rs to larks, or sunshine to the bee, 45 Are half so charming as thy sight to me.[20]

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, Delia, each cave and echoing rock rebounds. 50 Ye pow'rs, what pleasing frenzy soothes my mind!

Do lovers dream, or is my Delia kind?[21]

She comes, my Delia comes!--Now cease my lay,[22]

And cease, ye gales, to bear my sighs away!

Next aegon sung, while Windsor groves admired; 55 Rehea.r.s.e, ye muses, what yourselves inspired.

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!

Of perjured Doris, dying I complain:[23]

Here, where the mountains, less'ning as they rise, Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies: 60 While lab'ring oxen, spent with toil and heat, In their loose traces from the field retreat:[24]

While curling smokes from village tops are seen, And the fleet shades glide o'er the dusky green.[25]

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! 65 Beneath yon poplar oft we pa.s.sed the day: Oft on the rind I carved her am'rous vows,[26]

While she with garlands hung the bending boughs: The garlands fade, the vows are worn away; So dies her love, and so my hopes decay. 70 Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain!

Now bright Arcturus[27] glads the teeming grain, Now golden fruits on loaded branches shine, And grateful cl.u.s.ters swell with floods of wine;[28]

Now blushing berries paint the yellow grove; 75 Just G.o.ds! shall all things yield returns but love?

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!

The shepherds cry, "Thy flocks are left a prey"-- Ah! what avails it me, the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preserved my sheep? 80 Pan came, and asked, what magic caused my smart,[29]

Or what ill eyes[30] malignant glances dart?[31]

What eyes but hers, alas, have pow'r to move![32]

And is there magic but what dwells in love!

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains; 85 I'll fly from shepherds, flocks, and flow'ry plains, From shepherds, flocks, and plains, I may remove, Forsake mankind, and all the world--but love!

I know thee, Love! on foreign mountains bred,[33]

Wolves gave thee suck, and savage tigers fed.[34] 90 Thou wert from aetna's burning entrails torn, Got by fierce whirlwinds, and in thunder born![35]

Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay!

Farewell, ye woods, adieu the light of day!

One leap from yonder cliff shall end my pains,[36] 95 No more, ye hills, no more resound my strains!

Thus sung the shepherds till th' approach of night, The skies yet blushing with departing light,[37]

When falling dews with spangles decked the glade, And the low sun had lengthened ev'ry shade.[38] 100

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This Pastoral consists of two parts, like the eighth of Virgil: the scene, a hill; the time, at sunset.--POPE.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. Wycherley, a famous author of comedies; of which the most celebrated were the Plain-Dealer and Country-Wife. He was a writer of infinite spirit, satire, and wit. The only objection made to him was, that he had too much. However, he was followed in the same way by Mr.

Congreve, though with a little more correctness.--POPE.]

[Footnote 3: Formed on Dryden's version of Ecl. i. 1:

Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: Before the edition of 1736 the couplet ran thus:

To whose complaints the list'ning forests bend, While one his mistress mourns, and one his friend.

In keeping with this announcement the song of Hylas, which forms the first portion of the Pastoral, was devoted to mourning an absent _shepherd_, and not, as at present, an absent _shepherdess_. When Pope made his lines commemorative of love, instead of friendship, he did little more than change the name of the man (Thyrsis) to that of a woman (Delia), and subst.i.tute the feminine for the masculine p.r.o.noun. The extravagant idea expressed in the first line of the rejected couplet is found in Oldham's translation of Moschus:

And trees leaned their attentive branches down.

There is nothing of the kind in the Greek text.]

[Footnote 5: From Dryden's version of Ecl. i. 5:

While stretched at ease you sing your happy loves, And Amaryllis fills the shady groves.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 6: Wycherley.]

[Footnote 7: He was always very careful in his encomiums not to fall into ridicule, the trap which weak and prost.i.tute flatterers rarely escape. For "sense," he would willingly have said "moral;" propriety required it. But this dramatic poet's moral was remarkably faulty. His plays are all shamefully profligate, both in the dialogue and action.--WARBURTON.

Warburton's note has more the appearance of an insidious attack upon Pope than of serious commendation; for if, as Warburton a.s.sumes, the panegyric in the text has reference to the plays and not to the man, it was a misplaced "encomium" to say that Wycherley "instructed" the world by the "sense," and "swayed" them by the "judgment," which were manifested "in a shamefully profligate dialogue and action."]

[Footnote 8: The reading was "rapture" in all editions till that of 1736.]

[Footnote 9: Few writers have less nature in them than Wycherley.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 10: Till the edition of 1736 the following lines stood in place of the couplet in the text:

Attend the muse, though low her numbers be, She sings of friendship, and she sings to thee.]

[Footnote 11: Pope had Waller's Thyrsis and Galatea in his memory:

Made the wide country echo to your moan, The list'ning trees, and savage mountains groan.--WAKEFIELD.

The groans of the trees and mountains are, in Waller's poem, the echo of the mourner's lamentations, but to this Pope has added that the "moan"

made "the rocks weep," which has no resemblance to anything in nature.]

[Footnote 12: The lines from verse 17 to 30 are very beautiful, tender, and melodious.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 13: It was a time-honoured fancy that the "moan" of the turtle-dove was a lament for the loss of its mate. _Turtur_, the Latin name for the bird, is a correct representation of its monotonous note.

The poets commonly call it simply the turtle, but since the term, to quote the explanation of Johnson in his Dictionary, is also "used by sailors and gluttons for a tortoise" the description of its "deep murmurs" as "filling the sounding sh.o.r.es," calls up this secondary sense, and gives an air of ludicrousness to the pa.s.sage.]

[Footnote 14: This whole pa.s.sage is imitated from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Book iii. p. 712, 8vo ed.:

Earth, brook, flow'rs, pipe, lamb, dove, Say all, and I with them, Absence is death, or worse, to them that love.--WAKEFIELD.]