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THYRS IS.

Ye gentle Mufes, leave your crystal spring, Let Nymphs and Sylvans cypress garlands bring, Ye weeping Loves, the ftream with myrtles hide, And break your bows, as when Adonis dy'd; And with your golden darts, now useless grown, 25 Inscribe a verse on this relenting stone : "Let nature change, let heav'n and earth deplore, "Fair Daphne's dead, and love is now no more!"

'Tis done, and nature's various charms decay, See gloomy clouds obfcure the chearful day!

30

Now

VARIATIONS.

VER. 29. Originally thus in the MS.

'Tis done, and nature chang'd fince you are gone;
Behold the clouds have put their Mourning on.

REMARKS.

WARBURTON.

VER. 21. Let Nymphs and Sylvans, &c.] This line recalls a pathetic little ballad, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy: Lay a garland on my hearfe

Of the difmal

yew,

Maidens, willow branches bear,

Say I died true.

My love was falfe, but I was true,

From my hour of birth :

Upon my buried body lie

Softly, gentle earth!

VER. 31. Now hung with pearls, c.]

“And hung a pearl in every cowfiip's ear."

Mid-summer Night's Dream.—STEVENS.

IMITATIONS.

VER, 23, 24, 25

“Inducite fontibus umbras

Et tumulum facite, et tumulo fuperaddite carmen.”

P.

Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear,
Their faded honours scatter'd on her bier.
See, where on earth the flow'ry glories lie,
With her they flourish'd, and with her they die.
Ah what avail the beauties nature wore?

Fair Daphne's dead, and beauty is no more!
For her the flocks refuse their verdant food,
The thirsty heifers fhun the gliding flood,
The filver fwans her hapless fate bemoan,

In notes more fad than when they fing their own;
In hollow caves fweet Echo filent lies,
Silent, or only to her name replies;

Her name with pleasure once she taught the shore,
Now Daphne's dead and pleasure is no more!

No grateful dews defcend from ev'ning skies,
Nor morning odours from the flow'rs arise;

35

41

45

No

REMARKS.

VER. 41. fweet Echo] This expreffion of fweet Eche is taken from Comus; as is another expreffion, loofe traces, Third Paft. v. 62. And he recommends these poems in high terms to Sir W. Trumball (see the Letters) so early as the year 1704.

WARTON.

VE. 41. In hollow caves fweet Echo filent lies.]
"The cave where echo lies." Romeo and Juliet. STEVENS.

Sweet Echo, fweetest nymph, that liv'dft unfeen.

Oh if thou have,

Hid them in fome flow'ry cave,

Αχω δ' εν πέτρησιν οδύρεται, οττι σιωπή,

Κεκετι μιμείται τα σα κειλεα.

COMUS.

Compare Mofchus's beautiful Epitaphium Bionis. "Echo mourns amid the rocks, that she must now be filent, nor ever imitate again thy lips."

No rich perfumes refresh the fruitful field,
Nor fragrant herbs their native incense yield.
The balmy Zephyrs, filent fince her death,
Lament the ceafing of a sweeter breath;
Th' induftrious bees neglect their golden ftore!
Fair Daphne's dead, and sweetness is no more!

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No more the mounting larks, while Daphne fings,
Shall lift'ning in mid-air fufpend their wings;
No more the birds fhall imitate her lays,

Or hufh'd with wonder, hearken from the sprays:
No more the streams their murmurs fhall forbear,
A sweeter mufic than their own to hear,
But tell the reeds, and tell the vocal fhore,
Fair Daphne's dead, and music is no more!

Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze,

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бо

And told in fighs to all the trembling trees;

The trembling trees, in ev'ry plain and wood,

Her fate remurmur to the filver flood;

The filver flood, fo lately calm, appears

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Swell'd with new paffion, and o'erflows with tears; The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore, Daphne, our grief! our glory now no more!

But

REMARKS.

VER. 54. Here the circumftances of the lark fufpending its wings in mid-air, is highly beautiful, because the image is diftinct, and there is a veri-fimilitudo in it, which is not the cafe where a waterfall is made to be suspended by the power of Mufic.

VER. 61. &c. Her fate is whispered] All this is very poor, and unworthy Pope. First, the breeze whifpers the death of Daphne to the trees; then the trees inform the flood of it; then the flood

"o'erflows

But fee! where Daphne wond'ring mounts on high Above the clouds, above the starry sky!

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Eternal beauties grace the fhining scene,

Fields ever fresh, and groves for ever green!
There while you reft in Amaranthine bow'rs,
Or from thofe meads felect unfading flow'rs,
Behold us kindly, who your name implore,
Daphne, our Goddess, and our grief no more!

75

How

REMARKS.

"o'erflows with tears ;" and then they all deplore" together! Let us, however, fill remember the youth of Pope, and the example of prior poets. In Camden's remains there is acurious Epitaph, where such ideas are carried to the greatest excess.

If I recollect rightly, the people, upon the death of the Queen, are called upon to fhed fo many tears, that the watermen might row to Whitehall in their eyes, instead of on the Thames.

The whole Paftoral would have been much more claffical, correct, and pure, if these eight lines,

(Her fate, &c. to Daphne is dead) had been omitted.

VER. 70. Above the clouds,] In Spenfer's November, and in Milton's Lycidas, is the fame beautiful change of circumstances: in the latter moft exquifite, from line 165.

Weep no more, woful fhepherds, weep no more-
Where other groves and other streams along,

With nectar pure his oozy

locks he laves,

And hears the inexpreffive nuptial fong

In the bleft kingdoms meek of joy and love.

IMITATIONS.

WARTON.

VER. 69, 70.

"miratur limen Olympi,

Sub pedibufque videt nubes et fydera Daphnis." Virg. P.

LYCID A S.

How all things liften, while thy Mufe complains! Such filence waits on Philomela's ftrains,

In some still ev'ning, when the whisp'ring breeze
Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees.
To thee, bright goddess, oft a lamb shall bleed,
If teeming ewes increase my fleecy breed.

80

While plants their fhade, or flow'rs their odours give, Thy name, thy honour, and thy praise shall live!

THYRSIS.

But fee, Orion fheds unwholesome dews;

Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse;
Sharp Boreas blows, and Nature feels decay,

Time conquers all, and we must Time obey.

85

VARIATIONS.

Adieu,

VER. 83. Originally thus in the MS.

While vapours rife, and driving fnows defcend,
Thy honour, name, and praife, fhall never end.

REMARKS.

VER. 85. unwholefome dews;] Obferve how the melody of those four verses is improved, by the pure iambic foot at the end of each line, except the fecond,

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Sæpe tener noftris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.” Virg.

"folet effe gravis cantantibus umbra,

VER. 86.

Juniperi gravis umbra." Virg.

VER. 88. Time conquers all, &c.]

“Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori.”

Vid. etiam Sannazarii Ecl. et Spenfer's Calendar.

P.

P.

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