Our minds unmov'd and unconcern'd they lull, And are at best most mufically dull:
So purling streams with even murmurs creep, And hush the heavy hearers into fleep.
As smoothest speech is most deceitful found, 15 The smootheft numbers oft are empty found. But Wit and Judgment join at once in you, Sprightly as Youth, as Age confummate too: Your strains are regularly bold, and please With unforc'd care, and unaffected ease, With proper thoughts, and lively images: Such as by Nature to the Antients shewn, Fancy improves, and judgment makes your own: For great mens fashions to be follow'd are, Altho' difgraceful 'tis their clothes to wear. Some in a polish'd style write Paftoral, Arcadia speaks the language of the Mall; Like fome fair Shepherdefs, the Sylvan Mufe, Should wear those flow'rs her native fields produce; And the true measure of the Shepherd's wit 39 Should, like his garb, be for the Country fit: Yet muft his and unaffected thought pure
More nicely than the common fwains be wrought, So, with becoming art, the Players dress
In filks the fhepherd, and the shepherdels; 35
Yet ftill unchang'd the form and mode remain,
Shap'd like the homely ruffet of the swain.
Your rural Muse appears to justify
The long loft graces of Simplicity:
So rural beauties captivate our fense
With virgin charms, and native excellence.
Yet long her Modesty those charms conceal'd,
'Till by mens Envy to the world reveal'd;
For Wits industrious to their trouble feem,
And needs will envy what they must esteem. 45
Live and enjoy their spite! nor mourn that fate, Which would, if Virgil liv'd, on Virgil wait; Whofe Mufe did once, like thine, in plains delight; Thine fhall, like his, foon take a higher flight; So Larks, which first from lowly fields arife, 50 Mount by degrees, and reach at last the skies.
W. WYCHERLEY.
To Mr. POPE, on his Windfor-Foreft.
AIL, facred Bard! a Mufe unknown before
Salutes thee from the bleak Atlantic shore. To our dark world thy fhining page is shown,
And Windfor's gay retreat becomes our own.
The Eaftern 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 Perfia glitter'd on our strand,
And China's Earth was cast on common fand
Tofs'd up and down the gloffy fragments lay, 10
And dreffed the rocky fhelves, and pav'd the
painted bay.
Thy treasures next arriv'd: and now we boast
A nobler cargo on our barren coast:
From thy luxuriant Forest we receive
More lafting glories than the Eaft can give. 15
Where-e'er we dip in thy delightful page,
What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engage!
The pompous scenes in all their pride appear,
Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were.
Nor half fo true the fair Lodona fhows
The sylvan state that on her border grows,
While she the wond'ring fhepherd entertains
With a new Windsor in her wat❜ry plains;
Thy jufter lays the lucid wave fsurpass,
The living scene is in the Mufe's glass.
Nor fweeter notes the echoing forests cheer,
When Philomela fits and warbles there,
Than when you fing the greens and op'ning
And give us Harmony as well as Shades:
A Titian's hand might draw the grove, but you 30
Can paint the grove, and add the Mufic too.
With vast variety thy pages fhine;
A new creation starts in ev'ry line.
How fudden trees rife to the reader's fight,
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 fee! the deserts caft a pleasing gloom,
And shrubby heaths rejoice in purple bloom : 40
Whilst fruitful crops rife by their barren fide,
And bearded groves difplay their annual pride.
Happy the man, who strings his tuneful lyre,
Where woods, and brooks, and breathing fields
inspire!
Thrice happy you! and worthy best to dwell
Amidst the rural joys you fing fo 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.
Ojoyless flood! O rough tempeftuous main! 50
Border'd with weeds, and folitudes obfcene!
Snatch me, ye Gods! from these Atlantic shores,
And shelter me in Windfor's fragrant bow'rs;
Or to my much-lov'd Ifis' walks convey,
And on her flow'ry banks for ever lay.
Thence let me view the venerable scene,
The awful dome, the groves eternal
Where facred Hough long found his fam'd retreat,
And brought the Muses to the sylvan seat,
Reform'd the wits, unlock'd the Claffic ftore, 60
And made that Mufic which was noife before.
There with illuftrious Bards I spent my days,
Nor free from cenfure, nor unknown to praise,
Enjoy'd the bleffings that his reign bestow'd,
Nor envy'd Windsor in the foft abode.
The golden minutes smoothly danc'd away,
And tuneful Bards beguil'd the tedious day :
They fung, nor fung in vain, with numbers fir'd
That Maro taught, or Addison inspir’d.
Ev'n I effay'd to touch the trembling string: 70 Who could hear them, and not attempt to fing? Rouz'd from these dreams by thy commanding ftrain,
I rise and wander through the field or plain ;
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