I mount the courser, call the deep-mouth'd hounds;
The fox unkennell'd, flies to covert grounds;
I lead where stags through tangled thickets tread,
And shake the saplings with their branching head;
I make the falcons wing their airy way,

my

And soar to seize, or stooping strike their prey;
To snare the fish I fix the luring bait;
To wound the fowl I load the gun with fate.
'Tis thus through change of exercise I range,
And strength and pleasure rise from every change.
Here beauteous Health for all the year remain ;
When the next comes, I'll charm thee thus again.
Oh come, thou Goddess of
rural song,
And bring thy daughter, calm Content, along!
Dame of the ruddy cheek and laughing eye,
From whose bright presence clouds of sorrow fly:
For her I mow my walks, I plait my bowers,
Clip my low hedges, and support my flowers;
To welcome her, this summer seat I dress'd,
And here I court her when she comes to rest;
When she from exercise to learned ease
Shall change again, and teach the change to please.
Now friends conversing my soft hours refine,

And Tully's Tusculum revives in mine:
Now to grave books I bid the mind retreat,
And such as make me rather good than great;
Or o'er the works of easy Fancy rove,
Where flutes and innocence amuse the grove :
The native bard that on Sicilian plains
First sung the lowly manners of the swains;
Or Maro's Muse, that in the fairest light
Paints rural prospects and the charms of sight;
These soft amusements bring Content along,
And Fancy, void of sorrow, turns to song.

Here beauteous Health for all the year remain ;
When the next comes, I'll charm thee thus again.

77

THE FLIES: AN ECLOGUE.

WHEN in the river cows for coolness stand,
And sheep for breezes seek the lofty land,
A youth whom Æsop taught that every tree,
Each bird and insect, spoke as well as he,
Walk'd calmly musing in a shaded way,
Where flowering hawthorn broke the sunny ray,
And thus instructs his moral pen to draw

A scene that obvious in the field he saw.

Near a low ditch, where shallow waters meet,
Which never learn'd to glide with liquid feet,
Whose Naiads never prattle as they play,
But screen'd with hedges slumber out the day,
There stands a slender fern's aspiring shade,
Whose answering branches, regularly laid,
Put forth their answering boughs, and proudly rise
Three storeys upward in the nether skies.

For shelter here, to shun the noonday heat,
An airy nation of the flies retreat ;
Some in soft air their silken pinions ply,
And some from bough to bough delighted fly,
Some rise, and circling light to perch again;
A pleasing murmur hums along the plain.
So, when a stage invites to pageant shows,
(If great and small are like) appear the beaux;
In boxes some with spruce pretension sit,
Some change from seat to seat within the pit,
Some roam the scenes, or turning cease to roam ;
Preluding music fills the lofty dome.

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When thus a fly (if what a fly can say
Deserves attention) raised the rural lay :

Where late Amintor made a nymph a bride,
Joyful I flew by young Favonia's side,
Who, mindless of the feasting, went to sip
The balmy pleasure of the shepherd's lip;
I saw the wanton where I stoop'd to sup,
And half resolved to drown me in the cup;
Till, brush'd by careless hands, she soar'd above:
Cease, beauty, cease to vex a tender love!

Thus ends the youth, the buzzing meadow rung,
And thus the rival of his music sung:

When suns by thousands shone in orbs of dew,
I, wafted soft, with Zephyretta flew ;

Saw the clean pail, and sought the milky cheer,
While little Daphnè seized my roving dear.
Wretch that I was! I might have warn'd the dame,
Yet sate indulging as the danger came,

But the kind huntress left her free to soar:
Ah! guard, ye lovers, guard a mistress more!
Thus from the fern, whose high projecting arms,
The fleeting nation bent with dusky swarms,
The swains their love in easy music breathe,
When tongues and tumult stun the field beneath,
Black ants in teams come darkening all the road;
Some call to march, and some to lift the load;
They strain, they labour with incessant pains,
Press'd by the cumbrous weight of single grains.
The flies, struck silent, gaze with wonder down:
The busy burghers reach their earthy town,
Where lay the burdens of a wintry store,
And thence, unwearied, part in search of more.
Yet one grave sage a moment's space attends,
And the small city's loftiest point ascends,

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Wipes the salt dew that trickles down his face,
And thus harangues them with the gravest grace ·
Ye foolish nurslings of the summer air!
These gentle tunes and whining songs forbear,
Your trees and whispering breeze, your grove and love,
Your Cupid's quiver, and his mother's dove ;
Let bards to business bend their vigorous wing,
And sing but seldom, if they love to sing :
Else, when the flowerets of the season fail,
And this your ferny shade forsakes the vale,

Though one would save ye, not one grain of wheat
Should pay such songster's idling at my gate.

He ceased the flies, incorrigibly vain,
Heard the mayor's speech, and fell to sing again.

70

AN ELEGY TO AN OLD BEAUTY.

In vain, poor nymph, to please our youthful sight
You sleep in cream and frontlets all the night,
Your face with patches soil, with paint repair,
Dress with gay gowns, and shade with foreign hair.
If truth in spite of manners must be told,
Why, really, fifty-five is something old.

Once you were young; or one, whose life's so long,
She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong.
And once, (since Envy's dead before you die)
The women own, you play'd a sparkling eye,
Taught the light foot a modish little trip,
And pouted with the prettiest purple lip.

To some new charmer are the roses fled, Which blew, to damask all thy cheek with red ; Youth calls the graces there to fix their reign, And airs by thousands fill their easy train.

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So parting Summer bids her flowery prime
Attend the Sun to dress some foreign clime,
While withering seasons in succession, here,
Strip the gay gardens, and deform the Year.

But thou (since Nature bids) the world resign,
'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine.
With more address, (or such as pleases more)
She runs her female exercises o'er,

Unfurls or closes, raps or turns the fan,
And smiles, or blushes at the creature Man.
With quicker life, as gilded coaches pass,
In sideling courtesy she drops the glass.
With better strength, on visit-days she bears
To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs.

Her mien, her shape, her temper, eyes and tongue,
Are sure to conquer—for the rogue is young;
And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay,

We call it only pretty Fanny's way.

Let Time that makes you homely, make you sage,
The sphere of wisdom is the sphere of age.
"Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire,
And hears the flattering tongues of soft desire,
If not from virtue, from its gravest ways
The soul with pleasing avocation strays.
But beauty gone, 'tis easier to be wise;
As harpers better by the loss of eyes.

Henceforth retire, reduce your roving airs,
Haunt less the plays, and more the public prayers,
Reject the Mechlin head, and gold brocade,
Go pray, in sober Norwich crape array'd.
Thy pendant diamonds let thy Fanny take,
Their trembling lustre shows how much you shake;
Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl,
You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl.

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