Nor hear th' imperious woodman's call,
Nor fee your fylvan daughters fall,
With head declin'd attend their moan,
And echo to the dying groan.
While I, attack'd by foes to reft,
New viftas opening thro' my breast,
Am daily torn with wounds and flashes,
And see my oaks, my elms, my ashes,
With rhiming labels round them fet,
As every tree were to be let.
And, when one pants for confolation,
Am put in mind of contemplation.
O friend, inftruct me to endure
Thefe mighty ills, or hint a cure.
Say, might not marriage, well apply'd,
Improve his tafte, correct his pride,
Inform him books but make folks muddy,
Confine his morals to his study,
Teach him, like other mortals, here
To toy and prattle with his dear;
Avert that fate my fear foresees,
And, for his children, fave his trees?
Right trusty wood, if you approve
The remedy express'd above,
Write by the next fair wind that blows,
And kindly recommend a spouse.
EAR grove, I ask ten thousand pardons,
Sure I'm the most abfurd of gardens !
Such correfpondence to neglect-
Lord, how muft all grove-kind reflect!
Your human loiterers, they fay,
Can put ye off from day to day
With poft gone out-the careless maid
Forgot the letter was miflaid-
And twenty phrafes wrought with art
To hide the coldness of the heart.
But vegetables from their youth
Were always taught to fpeak the truth,
In Dodonn's vales, on Mona's mountains,
In Jotham's fables, or in Fontaine's,
They talk like any judge or bishop,
Quite from the cedar down to hyffop.
I therefore for my past offence
May own, with fylvan innocence,
I've nought but negligence to plead ;
Which you'll excufe, and I'll proceed.
You groves who stand remote from towns (Tho' we are apt to call ye clowns)
Have really fomething in your natures
Which makes ye most diverting creatures.
And then, I vow, I like to fee
That primitive fimplicity;
To think of marriage as a means
T'improve his taste, and fave your greens
It looks fo like that good old
Where Adam once to Eve made love,
That any foul alive would fwear
Your trees were educated there.
Why, child, the only hope thou haft
Lies in thy mafter's want of tafte;
For fhou'd his ling'ring ftay in London
Improve his tafte, you must be undone;
Your trees would presently lie flat,
And the high mode of one green plat
Run thro' his worship's whole estate,
Befides, you ruftics fill your
With Ovid, and his strange romances.
Why now you think, in days like ours,
That love must still inhabit bowers,
And goddeffes, as juft rewards
For hymns of praife, grow fond of bards,
And fly to over-arching woods
And flowery banks, and cryftal floods,
Because fuch things, forfooth, were wanted
When your great grandmothers were planted.
The cafe, my dear, is alter'd quite,
Not that we're chaste, but more polite;
Your fhepherdeffes fought fuch places,
Like fimple girls, to hide their faces;
But our bright maids difdain the thought,
They know hypocrify's a fault,
And never bear by their confent
The fhame of feeming innocent.
But I forget, you've just got down
A miftrefs, as you wish'd, from town.
I don't know what you'll fay at Romely,
We really think the woman comely;
Has fome good qualities befide,
They fay, but she's as yet a bride;
One can't truft every report—
Not we I mean who live near court;
A lie perhaps in Derbyshire
May be as ftrange as truth is here.
Our ladies, and all their relations,
Are vaftly full of commendations;
-'s part, fhe fwears,
-I ask her pardon-she avers
That never in her life-time yet
She faw a woman more compleat;
And wishes trees could tramp the plain,
Like Birnham wood to Dunfinane,
So might or you or I remove,
And Romely join to Haling grove.
O could her wish but alter fate
And kindly place us téte à tête,
How sweetly might from every walk
My echoes to your echoes talk!
But fince, as juftly you observe,
By Nature's laws, which never swerve,
We're bound from gadding, tree by tree,
Both us and our posterity,
Let each, content with her own county,
E'en make the best of Nature's bounty.
Calmly enjoy the present blifs,
Nor in what might be lose what is.
Believe me, dear, beyond expreffing
We're happy, if we knew the bleffing.
Our masters, all the world allow,
Are honeft men as times go now;
They neither wench, nor drink, nor game,
Nor burn with zeal or party flame,
From whence, excepting adverse fates,
We may conclude that there estates
Will probably increase, and we
Shall stand another century.
Then never mind a tree or two Cut down perhaps to ope a view, Nor be of nail'd up verse asham'd, You'll live to see the poet damn'd. I envy not, I fwear and vow,
The temples, or the fhades of Stow;
|