Nor doom us sad Cremona's fate to share
(For ah ! a neighbour's woe excites our fear),
Then high as Heaven our Varus' fame shall rise,
The warbling swans shall bear it to the skies.'

Lycidas. Go on, dear swain, these pleasing songs pursue ; So may thy bees avoid the bitter yew, So may rich herds thy fruitful fields adorn, So may thy cows with strutting dugs return. Even I with poets have obtain'd a name, The Muse inspires me with poetic flame; Th’applauding shepherds to my songs attend, But I suspect my skill, though they commend. I dare not hope to please a Cinna's ear, Or sing what Varus might vouchsafe to hear. Harsh are the sweetest lays that I can bring, So screams a goose where swans melodious sing.

Moris. This I am pondering, if I can rehearse The lofty numbers of that labour'd verse. • Come, Galatea, leave the rolling seas ; Can rugged rocks and heaving surges please ? Come, taste the pleasures of our sylvan bowers, Our balmy-breathing gales and fragrant flowers. Se how plains ejoice on every side, How crystal streams through blooming valleys glide : O’er the cool grot the whitening poplars bend, And clasping vines their grateful umbrage lend, Come, beauteous nymph, forsake the briny wave; Loud on the beach let the wild billows rave.'

Lycidas.
Or what you sung one evening on the plain---*
The air, but not the words, I yet retain.

Moeris.
Why, Daphnis, dost thou calculate the skies,
To know when ancient constellations rise ?
Lo, Cæsar's star its radiant light displays,
And on the nations sheds propitious rays.

On the glad hills the reddening clusters glow,
And smiling plenty decks the plains below,
Now graff

' thy pears; the star of Cæsar reigas,
To thy remotest race the fruit remains."
The rest I have forgot, for length of years
Deadens the sense, and memory impairs.
All things in time submit to sad decay;
Oft have we sung whole summer suns away.
These vanish'd joys must Moeris now deplore,
His voice delights, his numbers charm no more ;
Him have the wolves beheld, bewitch'd his song,
Bewitch'd to silence his melodious tongue.
But your desire Menalcas can fulfil,
All these, and more, he sings with matchless skill.

Lycidas.
These faint excuses which my Moeris frames
But heighten my desire.-And now the streams
In slumber-soothing murmurs softly flow;
And now the sighing breeze hath ceased to blow.
Half of our way is past, for I descry
Bianor's tomb just rising to the eye.t
Here in this leafy arbour ease your toil,
Lay down your kids, and let us sing the while
We soon shall reach the town; or, lest a storm
Of sudden rain the evening-sky deform,
Be yours to cheer the journey with a song,
Eased of your load, which I shall bear along.

Moeris.
No more, my friend; your kind entreaties spare,
And let our journey be our present care ;
Let fate restore vur absent friend again,
Then gladly I resume the tuneful strain.

* In Italia creditur luporum visus esse noxios; vocemque homini qnem priores contemplentur adimere ad præsens.- Plin. N. H. viii. 22.

+ Bianor is said to have founded Mantua.-Servius.

Gallus.

T To my last labour lend thy sacred aid,

1 O Arethusa ; that the cruel maid With deep remorse may read the mournful song, For mournful lays to Gallus' love belong. (What Muse in sympathy will not bestow Some tender strains to soothe my Gallus' woe?) So may thy waters pure of briny stain Traverse the waves of the Sicilian main.

1 Sing, mournful Muse, of Gallus' luckless love, While the goats browse along the cliffs above. Nor silent is the waste while we complain, The woods return the long resounding strain.

Whither, ye fountain-nymphs, were ye withdrawn, To what lone woodland, or what devious lawn, When Gallus' bosom languish'd with the fire Of hopeless love, and unallay'd desire ? For neither by th’ Aonian spring you stray'd, Nor roam'd Parnassus' heights, nor Pindus' hallow'd

shade. The pines of Mænalus were heard to mourn, And sounds of woe along the groves were borne;": " And sympathetic tears the laurel shed,

9 And humbler shrubs declined their drooping head. All wept his fate, when to despair resign'd Beneath a desert cliff he lay reclined.

III

L! * The scene of this pastoral is very accurately delineated. We behold the forlora Gallus stretched along beneath a solitary cliff, his flocks standing round him at some distance. A group of deities and swains encircle him, each of whom is particularly described. On one side we see the shepherds with their crooks next to them the neatherds, known by the clumsiness of their appearance; and next to these Menalcas with his clothes wete as just come from veating or gathering winter-mast. On the other side we observe Apollo with his usual insignia ; Sylvanus crowned with flowers, and brandishing in his hand the long liliest and flowering fennel;

and last of all Ban, the god of shepherds, known by his ruddy smiling countenance, and the otber pecu-l harities of his form. Gallus was a Roman of very considerable rank, a poet of ng Testimation, and an intimate friend of Virgil. He loved to iron one Cytheris (here called Lycoris), whq slighted bim,

d Antony into Gaul..

Lyceus' rocks were hung with many a tear,
And round the swain his flocks forlorn appear.
Nor scorn, celestial bard, a poet's name;
Renown'd Adonis by the lonely stream
Tended his flock-As thus he lay along,
The swains and awkward neatherds round him !!!

throng.
Wet from the winter-mast Menalcas came. ***
All ask, what beauty raised the fatal flame. 'n PTS
The god of verse vouchsafed to join the rest ;
He said,? What phrenzy thus torments thy breast?
While she, thy darling, thy Lycoris, scorns it yhI'VE
Thy proffer'd love, and for another burns,"?! Hal
With whom o'er winter-wastes she wanders far, 13
'Midst camps, and clashing arms, and boisterous war.
Sylvanus came, with rural garlands crown'd,
And waved the lilies long, and flowering fennel **

round. Next we beheld the gay Arcadian god; His smiling cheeks with bright vermilion glowid. • For ever wilt thou heave the bursting sigh? Is love regardful of the weeping eye? Love is not cloy'd with tears; alas! no more Than bees luxurious with the balmy flower, ?* Than goats with foliage, than the grassy plain! With silver rills and soft refreshing rain.' Pan spoke; and thus the youth, with grief opprest ;• Arcadians! hear, 0 hear my last request ; venith O ye, to whom the sweetest lays belong, O let my sorrows on your hills be sung : If

your soft flutes shall celebrate my woes, How will my bones in deepest peace repose ! Ah, had I been with you a country-swain, And pruned the vine, and fed the bleating train ; Had Phyllis, or some other rural fair, Or black Amyntas been my darling care ; (Beauteous, though black; what lovelier flower is seen Than the dark violet on the painted green ?) These in the bower had yielded all their charms, And sunk with mutual raptures in my arms: Phyllis had crown'd my head with garlands gay, 101. Amyntas sung the pleasing hours away.

Here, O Lycoris, purls the limpid spring,
Bloom all the meads, and all the woodlands sing
Here let me press thee to my panting breast,
Till youth, and joy, and life itself be past.
Banish'd by love, o'er hostile lands I stray,
And mingle in the battle's dread array;
Whilst thou, relentless to my constant flame,
(Ah could I disbelieve the voice of fame!)
Far from thy home, unaided and forlorn,
Far from thy love, thy faithful love, art borne,
On the bleak Alps with chilling blasts to pine,
Or wander waste along the frozen Rhine.
Ye icy paths, O spare her tender form!
O spare those heavenly charms, thou wintry storm!

Hence let me hasten to some desert-grove,
And soothe with songs my long-unanswer'd love.
I go, in some lone wilderness to suit
Euboean lays to my Sicilian flute.
Better with beasts of prey to make abode
In the deep cavern, or the darksome wood;
And carve on trees the story of my woe,
Which with the growing bark shall ever grow.
Meanwhile, with woodland-nymphs, a lovely throng,
The winding groves of Mænalus along
I roam at large; or chase the foaming boar;
Or with sagacious hounds the wilds, explore,
Careless of cold. And now methinks I bound
O'er rocks and cliffs, and hear the woods resound;
And now with beating heart I seem to wing
The Cretan arrow from the Parthian string-
As if I thus my phrenzy could forego,
As if love's god could melt at human woe.
Alas! nor nymphs nor heavenly songs delight
Farewell, ye groves! the groves no more invite.
No pains, no miseries of man can move
The unrelenting deity of love.
To quench your thirst in Hebrus' frozen flood,
To make the Scythian snows your drear abode ;
Or feed your flock on Ethiopian plains,
When Sirius' fiery constellation reigns,
(When deep-imbrown'd the languid herbage lies
And in the elm the vivid verdure dies),