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PASTORAL VIII. ⁸²
DAMON, ALPHESIBŒUS

 
Rehearse we, Pollio, the enchanting strains
Alternate sung by two contending swains.
Charm'd by their songs, the hungry heifers stood
In deep amaze, unmindful of their food;
The listening lynxes laid their rage aside,
The streams were silent, and forgot to glide.
O thou, where'er thou lead'st thy conquering host,
Or by Timavus,⁸³ or th' Illyrian coast!
When shall my Muse, transported with the theme,
In strains sublime my Pollio's deeds proclaim;
And celebrate thy lays by all admir'd,
Such as of old Sophocles' Muse inspir'd?
To thee, the patron of my rural songs,
To thee my first, my latest lay belongs.
Then let this humble ivy-wreath enclose,
Twin'd with triumphal bays, thy godlike brows.
What time the chill sky brightens with the dawn,
When cattle love to crop the dewy lawn,
Thus Damon to the woodlands wild complain'd,
As 'gainst an olive's lofty trunk he lean'd.
 

DAMON

 
Lead on the genial day, O star of morn!
While wretched I, all hopeless and forlorn,
With my last breath my fatal woes deplore,
And call the gods by whom false Nisa swore;
Though they, regardless of a lover's pain,
Heard her repeated vows, and heard in vain.
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.⁸⁴
Blest Mænalus! that hears the pastoral song
Still languishing its tuneful groves along!
That hears th' Arcadian god's celestial lay,
Who taught the idly-rustling reeds to play!
That hears the singing pines! that hears the swain
Of love's soft chains melodiously complain!
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
Mopsus the willing Nisa now enjoys —
What may not lovers hope from such a choice!
Now mares and griffins shall their hate resign,
And the succeeding age shall see them join
In friendship's tie; now mutual love shall bring
The dog and doe to share the friendly spring.
Scatter thy nuts, O Mopsus, and prepare
The nuptial torch to light the wedded fair.
Lo, Hesper hastens to the western main!
And thine the night of bliss – thine, happy swain!
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
Exult, O Nisa, in thy happy state!
Supremely blest in such a worthy mate;
While you my beard detest, and bushy brow,
And think the gods forget the world below:
While you my flock and rural pipe disdain,
And treat with bitter scorn a faithful swain.
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
When first I saw you by your mother's side,
To where our apples grew I was your guide:
Twelve summers since my birth had roll'd around,
And I could reach the branches from the ground.
How did I gaze! – how perish! – ah how vain
The fond bewitching hopes that sooth'd my pain!
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
Too well I know thee, Love. From Scythian snows,
Or Lybia's burning sands the mischief rose.
Rocks adamantine nurs'd this foreign bane,
This fell invader of the peaceful plain.
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
Love taught the mother's⁸⁵ murdering hand to kill,
Her children's blood love bade the mother spill.
Was love the cruel cause?⁸⁶ Or did the deed
From fierce unfeeling cruelty proceed?
Both fill'd her brutal bosom with their bane;
Both urg'd the deed, while Nature shrunk in vain.
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
Now let the fearful lamb the wolf devour;
Let alders blossom with Narcissus' flower;
From barren shrubs let radiant amber flow;
Let rugged oaks with golden fruitage glow;
Let shrieking owls with swans melodious vie;
Let Tityrus the Thracian numbers try,
Outrival Orpheus in the sylvan reign,
And emulate Arion on the main.
Begin, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
Let land no more the swelling waves divide;
Earth, be thou whelm'd beneath the boundless tide;
Headlong from yonder promontory's brow
I plunge into the rolling deep below.
Farewell, ye woods! farewell, thou flowery plain!
Hear the last lay of a despairing swain.
And cease, my pipe, the sweet Mænalian strain.
 
 
Here Damon ceas'd. And now, ye tuneful Nine,
Alphesibœus' magic verse subjoin,
To his responsive song your aid we call,
Our power extends not equally to all.
 

ALPHESIBŒUS

 
Bring living waters from the silver stream,
With vervain and fat incense feed the flame:
With this soft wreath the sacred altars bind,
To move my cruel Daphnis to be kind,
And with my phrensy to inflame his soul:
Charms are but wanting to complete the whole.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
By powerful charms what prodigies are done!
Charms draw pale Cynthia from her silver throne;
Charms burst the bloated snake, and Circe's⁸⁷ guests
By mighty magic charms were changed to beasts,
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
Three woollen wreaths, and each of triple dye,
Three times about thy image I apply,
Then thrice I bear it round the sacred shrine;
Uneven numbers please the powers divine.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
Haste, let three colours with three knots be join'd,
And say, "Thy fetters, Venus, thus I bind."
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
As this soft clay is harden'd by the flame,
And as this wax is soften'd by the same,
My love that harden'd Daphnis to disdain,
Shall soften his relenting heart again.
Scatter the salted corn, and place the bays,
And with fat brimstone light the sacred blaze.
Daphnis my burning passion slights with scorn,
And Daphnis in this blazing bay I burn.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
As when, to find her love, an heifer roams
Through trackless groves, and solitary glooms;
Sick with desire, abandon'd to her woes,
By some lone stream her languid limbs she throws;
There in deep anguish wastes the tedious night,
Nor thoughts of home her late return invite:
Thus may he love, and thus indulge his pain,
While I enhance his torments with disdain.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
These robes beneath the threshold here I leave,
These pledges of his love, O Earth, receive.
Ye dear memorials of our mutual fire,
Of you my faithless Daphnis I require.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
These deadly poisons and these magic weeds,
Selected from the store which Pontus breeds,
Sage Mœris gave me; oft I saw him prove
Their sovereign power; by these, along the grove
A prowling wolf the dread magician roams;
Now gliding ghosts from the profoundest tombs
Inspired he calls; the rooted corn he wings
And to strange fields the flying harvest brings.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
These ashes from the altar take with speed,
And treading backwards cast them o'er your head
Into the running stream nor turn your eye.
Yet this last spell, though hopeless, let me try.
But nought can move the unrelenting swain,
And spells, and magic verse, and gods are vain.
Bring Daphnis home, bring Daphnis to my arms,
O bring my long-lost love, my powerful charms.
Lo, while I linger, with spontaneous fire
The ashes redden, and the flames aspire!
May this new prodigy auspicious prove!
What fearful hopes my beating bosom move!
Hark! does not Hylax bark – ye powers supreme
Can it be real, or do lovers dream! —
He comes, my Daphnis comes! forbear my charms;
My love, my Daphnis flies to bless my longing arms.
 

PASTORAL IX. ⁸⁸
LYCIDAS, MŒRIS

LYCIDAS

 
Go you to town, my friend? this beaten way
Conducts us thither.
 

MŒRIS

 
Ah! the fatal day,
The unexpected day at last is come,
When a rude alien drives us from our home.
Hence, hence, ye clowns, th' usurper thus commands,
To me you must resign your ancient lands.
Thus helpless and forlorn we yield to fate;
And our rapacious lord to mitigate
This brace of kids a present I design,
Which load with curses, O ye powers divine!
 

LYCIDAS

 
'Twas said, Menalcas with his tuneful strains
Had sav'd the grounds of all the neighbouring swains,
From where the hill, that terminates the vale,
In easy risings first begins to swell,
Far as the blasted beech that mates the sky,
And the clear stream that gently murmurs by.
 

MŒRIS

 
Such was the voice of fame; but music's charms,
Amid the dreadful clang of warlike arms,
Avail no more, than the Chaonian dove
When down the sky descends the bird of Jove.
And had not the prophetic raven spoke
His dire presages from the hollow oak,
And often warn'd me to avoid debate,
And with a patient mind submit to fate,
Ne'er had thy Mœris seen this fatal hour,
And that melodious swain had been no more.
 

LYCIDAS

 
What horrid breasts such impious thoughts could breed!
What barbarous hand could make Menalcas bleed!
Could every tender Muse in him destroy,
And from the shepherds ravish all their joy!
For who but he the lovely nymphs could sing,
Or paint the valleys with the purple spring?
Who shade the fountains from the glare of day?
Who but Menalcas could compose the lay,
Which, as we journey'd to my love's abode,
I softly sung to cheer the lonely road?
"Tityrus, while I am absent, feed the flock,⁸⁹
And, having fed, conduct them to the brook,
(The way is short, and I shall soon return)
But shun the he-goat with the butting horn."
 

MŒRIS

 
Or who could finish the imperfect lays
Sung by Menalcas to his Varus' praise?
"If fortune yet shall spare the Mantuan swains,
And save from plundering hands our peaceful plains,
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.
 

MŒRIS

 
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.
See, how our plains rejoice on every side,
How crystal streams thro' 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.
 

MŒRIS

 
"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 reigns,
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 Mœris now deplore,
His voice delights, his numbers charm no more;
Him have the wolves beheld, bewitch'd his song,⁹⁰
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 Mœris frames
But heighten my desire. – And now the streams
In slumber-soothing murmurs softly flow;
And now the sighing breeze hath ceas'd to blow.
Half of our way is past, for I descry
Bianor's tomb just rising to the eye.⁹¹
Here in this leafy harbour 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,
Eas'd of your load, which I shall bear along.
 

MŒRIS

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

PASTORAL X. ⁹²

GALLUS

 
To my last labour lend thy sacred aid,
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.
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,
And humbler shrubs declin'd their drooping head.
All wept his fate, when to despair resign'd
Beneath a desert-cliff he lay reclin'd.
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 rais'd the fatal flame.
The god of verse vouchsafed to join the rest;
He said, "What phrensy thus torments thy breast?
While she, thy darling, thy Lycoris, scorns
Thy proffer'd love, and for another burns,
With whom o'er winter-wastes she wanders far,
'Midst camps, and clashing arms, and boisterous war."
Sylvanus came with rural garlands crown'd,
And wav'd the lilies long, and flowering fennel round.
Next we beheld the gay Arcadian god;
His smiling cheeks with bright vermilion glow'd.
"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 flow'r,
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, O hear my last request;
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 prun'd 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,
Amyntas sung the pleasing hours away.
Here, O Lycoris, purls the limped 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 blast 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
Eubœan 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 phrensy 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)
Were all in vain. Love's unresisted sway
Extends to all, and we must love obey."
'Tis done: ye Nine, here ends your poet's strain
In pity sung to soothe his Gallus' pain.
While leaning on a flowery bank I twine
The flexile osiers, and the basket join.
Celestial Nine, your sacred influence bring,
And soothe my Gallus' sorrows while I sing:
Gallus, my much belov'd! for whom I feel
The flame of purest friendship rising still:
So by a brook the verdant alders rise,
When fostering zephyrs fan the vernal skies.
Let us begone: at eve, the shade annoys
With noxious damps, and hurts the singer's voice;
The juniper breathes bitter vapours round,
That kill the springing corn, and blast the ground.
Homeward, my sated goats, now let us hie;
Lo beamy Hesper gilds the western sky.
 

EPITAPH FOR A SHERIFFS MESSENGER;
WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED AT THE PARTICULAR DESIRE OF THE PERSON FOR WHOM IT IS INTENDED

 
Alas, how empty all our worldly schemes;
Vain are our wishes, our enjoyment dreams.
A debt to nature one and all must pay,
Nor will the creditor defer her day;
Death comes a messenger, displays the writ,
And to the fatal summons all submit.
An earthly messenger I was of yore,
The scourge of debtors then, but now – no more.
Oft have I stood in all my pomp confess'd,
The blazon beaming dreadful at my breast;
Oft have I wav'd on high th' attractive rod,
And made the wretch obsequious to my nod.
Pale shivering Poverty, that stalk'd behind,
His greasy rags loose fluttering in the wind,
And Terror, cudgel-arm'd, that strode before,
Still to my deeds unquestion'd witness bore.
Dire execution, as I march'd, was spread;
My threat'ning horn they heard – they heard and fled.
While thus destruction mark'd my headlong course,
Nor mortals durst oppose my matchless force,
A deadly warrant from the court of heaven
To Death, the sovereign messenger, was given.
Swift as the lightning's instantaneous flame,
Arm'd with his dart, the king of catchpoles came.
My heart, unmov'd before, was seiz'd with fear,
And sunk beneath his all-subduing spear;
To heaven's high bar the spirit wing'd its way,
And left the carcass forfeit to the clay.
Reader! though every ill beset thee round,
With patience bear, nor servilely despond;
Though heaven awhile delay th' impending blow,
Heaven sees the sorrows of the world below,
And sets at last the suffering mourner free
From famine, misery, pestilence, and me.
 

June 28th, 1759.                                       Mont. Abd. Ford.

TO MR. ALEXANDER ROSS,
AT LOCHLEE, AUTHOR OF THE FORTUNATE SHEPHERDESS AND OTHER POEMS IN THE BROAD SCOTCH DIALECT

 
O Ross, thou wale of hearty cocks,
Sae crouse and canty with thy jokes!
Thy hamely auldwarl'd muse provokes
Me for awhile
To ape our guid plain countra' folks
In verse and stile.
 
 
Sure never carle was haff sae gabby
E're since the winsome days o' Habby:
O mayst thou ne'er gang, clung, or shabby,
Nor miss thy snaker!
Or I'll ca' fortune nasty drabby,
And say – pox take her!
 
 
O may the roupe ne'er roust thy weason,
May thirst thy thrapple never gizzen!
But bottled ale in mony a dizzen,
Aye lade thy gantry!
And fouth o'vivres a' in season,
Plenish thy pantry!
 
 
Lang may thy stevin fill wi' glee
The glens and mountains of Lochlee,
Which were right gowsty but for thee,
Whase sangs enamour
Ilk lass, and teach wi' melody
The rocks to yamour.
 
 
Ye shak your head, but, o' my fegs,
Ye've set old Scota⁹³ on her legs,
Lang had she lyen wi' beffs and flegs,
Bumbaz'd and dizzie;
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs,
Waes me! poor hizzie!
 
 
Since Allan's death naebody car'd
For anes to speer how Scota far'd,
Nor plack nor thristled turner war'd
To quench her drouth;
For frae the cottar to the laird
We a' rin South.
 
 
The Southland chiels indeed hae mettle,
And brawly at a sang can ettle,
Yet we right couthily might settle
O' this side Forth.
The devil pay them wi' a pettle
That slight the North.
 
 
Our countra leed is far frae barren,
It's even right pithy and aulfarren,
Oursells are neiper-like, I warran,
For sense and smergh;
In kittle times when faes are yarring,
We're no thought ergh.
 
 
Oh! bonny are our greensward hows,
Where through the birks the birny rows,
And the bee bums, and the ox lows,
And saft winds rusle;
And shepherd lads on sunny knows
Blaw the blythe fusle.
 
 
It's true, we Norlans manna fa'
To eat sae nice or gang sae bra',
As they that come from far awa,
Yet sma's our skaith;
We've peace (and that's well worth it a')
And meat and claith.
 
 
Our fine newfangle sparks, I grant ye,
Gie' poor auld Scotland mony a taunty;
They're grown sae ugertfu' and vaunty,
And capernoited,
They guide her like a canker'd aunty
That's deaf and doited.
 
 
Sae comes of ignorance I trow,
It's this that crooks their ill fa'r'd mou'
Wi' jokes sae coarse, they gar fouk spue
For downright skonner;
For Scotland wants na sons enew
To do her honour.
 
 
I here might gie a skreed o' names,
Dawties of Heliconian dames!
The foremost place Gawin Douglas claims,
That canty priest;
And wha can match the fifth King James
For sang or jest?
 
 
Montgomery grave, and Ramsay gay,
Dunbar, Scot,⁹⁴ Hawthornden, and mae
Than I can tell; for o' my fae,
I maun break aff;
'Twould take a live lang simmer day
To name the haff.
 
 
The saucy chiels – I think they ca' them
Criticks, the muckle sorrow claw them,
(For mense nor manners ne'er could awe them
Frae their presumption)
They need nae try thy jokes to fathom;
They want rumgumption.
 
 
But ilka Mearns and Angus bearn,
Thy tales and sangs by heart shall learn,
And chiels shall come frae yont the Cairn —
– Amounth, right yousty,
If Ross will be so kind as share in
Their pint at Drousty.⁹⁵
 

THE END