Part 43

TO MR. WYCHERLEY.

Beneath the shade a spreading beech displays, Hylas and Ægon sung their rural lays; This mourned a faithless, that an absent love, And Delia's name and Doris' filled the grove. Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring; 5 Hylas and Ægon's rural lays I sing. Thou, whom the nine, with Plautus' wit inspire, The art of Terence, and Menander's fire; Whose sense instructs us, and whose humour charms, Whose judgment sways us, and whose spirit warms! 10 Oh, skilled in nature! see the hearts of swains, Their artless passions, and their tender pains. Now setting Phoebus shone serenely bright, And fleecy clouds were streaked with purple light; When tuneful Hylas with melodious moan, 15 Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan. Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! To Delia's ear the tender notes convey. As some sad turtle his lost love deplores And with deep murmurs fills the sounding shores; 20 Thus, far from Delia, to the winds I mourn, Alike unheard, unpitied, and forlorn. Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! For her, the feathered quires neglect their song: For her, the limes their pleasing shades deny; 25 For her, the lilies hang their heads and die. Ye flow'rs that droop, forsaken by the spring, Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing, Ye trees that fade when autumn-heats remove, Say, is not absence death to those who love? 30 Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! Cursed be the fields that cause my Delia's stay; Fade ev'ry blossom, wither ev'ry tree, Die ev'ry flower, and perish all but she. What have I said? where'er my Delia flies, 35 Let spring attend, and sudden flow'rs arise; Let op'ning roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from ev'ry thorn. Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs along! The birds shall cease to tune their ev'ning song, 40 The winds to breathe, the waving woods to move, And streams to murmur, ere I cease to love. Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain, Not balmy sleep to lab'rers faint with pain, Not show'rs to larks, or sunshine to the bee, 45 Are half so charming as thy sight to me. Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs away! Come, Delia, come; ah, why this long delay? Through rocks and caves the name of Delia sounds, Delia, each cave and echoing rock rebounds. 50 Ye pow'rs, what pleasing frenzy soothes my mind! Do lovers dream, or is my Delia kind? She comes, my Delia comes!--Now cease my lay, And cease, ye gales, to bear my sighs away! Next Ægon sung, while Windsor groves admired; 55 Rehearse, ye muses, what yourselves inspired. Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain! Of perjured Doris, dying I complain: Here, where the mountains, less'ning as they rise, Lose the low vales, and steal into the skies: 60 While lab'ring oxen, spent with toil and heat, In their loose traces from the field retreat: While curling smokes from village tops are seen, And the fleet shades glide o'er the dusky green. Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! 65 Beneath yon poplar oft we passed the day: Oft on the rind I carved her am'rous vows, While she with garlands hung the bending boughs: The garlands fade, the vows are worn away; So dies her love, and so my hopes decay. 70 Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strain! Now bright Arcturus glads the teeming grain, Now golden fruits on loaded branches shine, And grateful clusters swell with floods of wine; Now blushing berries paint the yellow grove; 75 Just Gods! shall all things yield returns but love? Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! The shepherds cry, "Thy flocks are left a prey"-- Ah! what avails it me, the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preserved my sheep? 80 Pan came, and asked, what magic caused my smart, Or what ill eyes malignant glances dart? What eyes but hers, alas, have pow'r to move! And is there magic but what dwells in love! Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains; 85 I'll fly from shepherds, flocks, and flow'ry plains, From shepherds, flocks, and plains, I may remove, Forsake mankind, and all the world--but love! I know thee, Love! on foreign mountains bred, Wolves gave thee suck, and savage tigers fed. 90 Thou wert from Ætna's burning entrails torn, Got by fierce whirlwinds, and in thunder born! Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful lay! Farewell, ye woods, adieu the light of day! One leap from yonder cliff shall end my pains, 95 No more, ye hills, no more resound my strains! Thus sung the shepherds till th' approach of night, The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles decked the glade, And the low sun had lengthened ev'ry shade. 100

FOOTNOTES:

Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse.--WAKEFIELD.]

To whose complaints the list'ning forests bend, While one his mistress mourns, and one his friend.

In keeping with this announcement the song of Hylas, which forms the first portion of the Pastoral, was devoted to mourning an absent shepherd, and not, as at present, an absent shepherdess. When Pope made his lines commemorative of love, instead of friendship, he did little more than change the name of the man (Thyrsis) to that of a woman (Delia), and substitute the feminine for the masculine pronoun. The extravagant idea expressed in the first line of the rejected couplet is found in Oldham's translation of Moschus:

And trees leaned their attentive branches down.

There is nothing of the kind in the Greek text.]

While stretched at ease you sing your happy loves, And Amaryllis fills the shady groves.--WAKEFIELD.]

Warburton's note has more the appearance of an insidious attack upon Pope than of serious commendation; for if, as Warburton assumes, the panegyric in the text has reference to the plays and not to the man, it was a misplaced "encomium" to say that Wycherley "instructed" the world by the "sense," and "swayed" them by the "judgment," which were manifested "in a shamefully profligate dialogue and action."]

Attend the muse, though low her numbers be, She sings of friendship, and she sings to thee.]

Made the wide country echo to your moan, The list'ning trees, and savage mountains groan.--WAKEFIELD.

The groans of the trees and mountains are, in Waller's poem, the echo of the mourner's lamentations, but to this Pope has added that the "moan" made "the rocks weep," which has no resemblance to anything in nature.]

Earth, brook, flow'rs, pipe, lamb, dove, Say all, and I with them, Absence is death, or worse, to them that love.--WAKEFIELD.]

Fade all ye flow'rs, and wither all ye woods.]

aurea duræ Mala ferant quercus, narcisso floreat alnus; Pinguia corticibus sudent electra myricæ.--POPE.

His obligations are also due to Dryden's version of Ecl. iv. 21:

Unlaboured harvests shall the fields adorn, And clustered grapes shall blush on ev'ry thorn: And knotted oaks shall show'rs of honey weep, And through the matted grass the liquid gold shall creep.

Bowles, in his translation of Theocritus, Idyll. v., assisted our bard:

On brambles now let violets be born, And op'ning roses blush on ev'ry thorn.

He seems to have had in view also the third Eclogue of Walsh:

Upon hard oaks let blushing peaches grow, And from the brambles liquid amber flow.--WAKEFIELD.]

With him through Libyia's burning plains I'll go, On Alpine mountains tread th' eternal snow; Yet feel no heat but what our loves impart, And dread no coldness but in Thyrsis' heart.--WARBURTON.

Wakefield remarks that the second line in this passage is taken from Dryden's Virg. Ecl. x. 71:

And climb the frozen Alps, and tread th' eternal snow.]

Quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per æstum Dulcis aquæ saliente sitim restinguere rivo.--POPE.]

To virgins flow'rs, to sun-burnt earth the rain, To mariners fair winds amid the main, Cool shades to pilgrims, whom hot glances burn, Are not so pleasing as thy blest return.--WARTON.]

an, qui amant, ipsi sibi somnia fingunt?--POPE.