Then rifing, through the path I rove With fighs I dew and kifs the door, But, Sylvia, when this conqueft's won, For every lovely generous maid And curse thee, Sylvia, I'm afraid, For breaking my poor heart. PROLOGUE TO N. LEE'S CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. WE HAT think ye meant wife Providence, when fir Poets were made? I'd tell you, if I durst, That 'twas in contradiction to heaven's word, For, For, were it worth the pains of fix long days, Nature their species fure must needs difown, Than fumbling, itching rhymers of the town The dullest he, thought most for business fit, Prevent the malice of their ftars in time, And warn them early from the fin of rhyme: } Tell them how Spenfer ftarv'd, how Cowley mourn'd, How Butler's faith and fervice was return'd; And And if fuch warning they refuse to take, To keep his brain clean, and not foul the land; THE BEGINNING O F A PASTORAL O N THE } DEATH OF HIS LATE MAJESTY. WHAT horror's this that dwells upon the plain, And thus difturbs the shepherds' peaceful reign A difmal found breaks through the yielding air, Forewarning us fome dreadful storm is near. The bleating flocks in wild confusion stray, The early larks forsake their wandering way, And ceafe to welcome-in the new-born day. Each nymph possest with a distracted fear, Disorder'd hangs her loose difhevel'd hair. } Difcafes Diseases with her strong convulfions reign, And deities, not known before to pain, Hence flow our forrows, hence increase our fears, That now the fhepherd of the flock is dead. Begin, Damela, let thy numbers fly Aloft where the foft milky way does lie; Mopfus, who Daphnis to the stars did sing, Shall join with you, and thither waft our king. Play gently on your reeds a mournful strain, And tell in notes, through all th' Arcadian plain, The royal Pan, the fhepherd of the sheep, He, who to leave his flock did dying weep, Is gone, ah gone! ne'er to return from Death's eternal fleep. CON To Mr. Creech, upon his Tranflation of Lucretius 63 Epilogue, fpoken upon his Royal Highness the Duke 1682 66 |