The Works of Alexander Pope Part 57

Their faded honours scattered on her bier.[17]

See, where on earth the flow'ry glories lie, With her they flourished, and with her they die.[18]

Ah what avail the beauties nature wore? 35 Fair Daphne's dead, and beauty is no more!

For her the flocks refuse their verdant food, The thirsty heifers shun the gliding flood,[19]

The silver swans her hapless fate bemoan, In notes more sad than when they sing their own;[20] 40 In hollow caves[21] sweet echo[22] silent lies,[23]

Silent, or only to her name replies:[24]

Her name with pleasure once she taught the sh.o.r.e, Now Daphne's dead, and pleasure is no more!

No grateful dews descend from ev'ning skies, 45 Nor morning odours from the flow'rs arise; No rich perfumes refresh the fruitful field, No fragrant herbs their native incense yield.[25]

The balmy zephyrs, silent since her death, Lament the ceasing of a sweeter breath;[26] 50 Th' industrious bees neglect their golden store![27]

Fair Daphne's dead, and sweetness is no more![28]

No more the mountain larks, while Daphne sings,[29]

Shall list'ning in mid-air suspend their wings;[30]

No more the birds shall imitate her lays,[31] 55 Or hushed with wonder, hearken from the sprays: No more the streams their murmurs shall forbear, A sweeter music than their own to hear,[32]

But tell the reeds, and tell the vocal sh.o.r.e, Fair Daphne's dead, and music is no more! 60 Her fate is whispered by the gentle breeze, And told in sighs to all the trembling trees; The trembling trees, in ev'ry plain and wood, Her fate remurmur to the silver flood;[33]

The silver flood, so lately calm, appears 65 Swelled[34] with new pa.s.sion, and o'erflows with tears;[35]

The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore,[36]

Daphne, our grief! our glory now no more!

But see! where Daphne wond'ring mounts on high[37]

Above the clouds, above the starry sky![38] 70 Eternal beauties grace the shining scene, Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green!

There while you rest in amaranthine bow'rs, Or from those meads select unfading flow'rs, Behold us kindly, who your name implore, 75 Daphne our G.o.ddess! and our grief no more!

LYCIDAS.

How all things listen, while thy muse complains![39]

Such silence waits on Philomela's strains, In some still ev'ning, when the whisp'ring breeze Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees.[40] 80 To thee, bright G.o.ddess, oft a lamb shall bleed,[41]

If teeming ewes increase my fleecy breed.

While plants their shade, or flow'rs their odours give,[42]

Thy name, thy honour, and thy praise shall live![43]

THYRSIS.

But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews:[44] 85 Arise; the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Sharp Boreas blows, and nature feels decay, Time conquers all, and we must time obey,[45]

Adieu ye vales, ye mountains, streams, and groves, Adieu ye shepherds' rural lays and loves; 90 Adieu, my flocks;[46] farewell, ye sylvan crew; Daphne, farewell; and all the word adieu![47]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This was the poet's favourite Pastoral.--WARBURTON.

It is professedly an imitation of Theocritus, whom Pope does not resemble, and whose Idylls he could only have read in a translation. The sources from which he really borrowed his materials will be seen in the notes.]

[Footnote 2: This lady was of ancient family in Yorkshire, and particularly admired by the author's friend Mr. Walsh, who having celebrated her in a Pastoral Elegy, desired his friend to do the same, as appears from one of his letters, dated Sept. 9, 1706. "Your last Eclogue being on the same subject with mine on Mrs. Tempest's death, I should take it very kindly in you to give it a little turn, as if it were to the memory of the same lady." Her death having happened on the night of the great storm in 1703, gave a propriety to this Eclogue, which in its general turn alludes to it. The scene of the Pastoral lies in a grove, the time at midnight.--POPE.

I do not find any lines that allude to the great storm of which the poet speaks.--WARTON.

Nor I. On the contrary, all the allusions to the winds are of the gentler kind,--"balmy Zephyrs," "whispering breezes" and so forth. Miss Tempest was the daughter of Henry Tempest, of Newton Grange, York, and grand-daughter of Sir John Tempest, Bart. She died unmarried. When Pope's Pastoral first appeared in Tonson's Miscellany, it was ent.i.tled "To the memory of a Fair Young Lady."--CROKER.]

[Footnote 3: This couplet was constructed from Creech's translation of the first Idyll of Theocritus:

And, shepherd, sweeter notes thy pipe do fill Than murm'ring springs that roll from yonder hill.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 4: Suggested by Virg. Ecl. v. 83:

nec quae Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles.

For winding streams that through the valley glide. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 5: Milton, Par. Lost, v. 195:

Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.]

[Footnote 6: Variation:

In the warm folds the tender flocks remain, The cattle slumber on the silent plain, While silent birds neglect their tuneful lays, Let us, dear Thyrsis, sing of Daphne's praise.--POPE.

It was originally,

Now in warm folds the tender flock remains.

Pope. "Objection to the word _remains_. I do not know whether these following be better or no, and desire your opinion.

Now while the groves in Cynthia's beams are dressed, And folded flocks in their soft fleeces rest; While sleeping birds, etc.

Or,

While Cynthia tips with silver all the groves, And scarce the winds the topmast branches moves.

or

While the bright moon with silver tips the grove, And not a breeze the quiv'ring branches move."

Walsh. "I think the last the best, but might not even that be mended?"]

[Footnote 7: Garth's Dispensary, Canto iv.:

As tuneful Congreve tries his rural strains, Pan quits the woods, the list'ning fauns the plains.

Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. vi. 100:

And called the mountain ashes to the plain.

Among the poems of Congreve is one ent.i.tled "The Mourning Muse of Alexis, a Pastoral lamenting the death of Queen Mary." This was the "sweet Alexis strain" to which Pope referred, and which the Thames "bade his willows learn."]

[Footnote 8: Virg. Ecl. vi. 83:

Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros.--POPE.

Admitting that a river gently flowing may be imagined a sensible being listening to a song, I cannot enter into the conceit of the river's ordering his laurels to learn the song. Here all resemblance to anything real is quite lost. This however is copied literally by Pope.--LORD KAMES.]

[Footnote 9: There is some connection implied between the "kind rains"

and the "willows learning the song," but I cannot trace the idea.]