May plenteous crops your irksome labour crown; May hoodwink'd Fortune cease her envious frown; May riches still increase with growing years; Your flocks be numerous as your silver hairs.
But, lo! the heat invites us at our ease
To court the twining shades and cooling breeze;
Our languid joints we'll peaceably recline,
And 'midst the flowers and opening blossoms dine.
WHILE yet grey twilight does his empire hold,
Drive all our heifers to the peaceful fold;
With sullied wing grim darkness soars along,
And larks to nightingales resign the song:
The weary ploughman flies the waving fields,
To taste what fare his humble cottage yields;
As bees, that daily through the meadows roam,
Feed on the sweets they have prepar'd at home.
The grassy meads that smil'd serenely gay,
Cheer'd by the ever-burning lamp of day,
In dusky hue attir'd, are cramp'd with colds,
And springing flowerets shut their crimson folds.
What awful silence reigns throughout the shade!
The peaceful olive bends his drooping head;
No sound is heard o'er all the gloomy maze;
Wide o'er the deep the fiery meteors blaze.
The west, yet ting'd with Sol's effulgent ray, With feeble light illumes our homeward way; The glowing stars with keener lustre burn, While round the earth their glowing axles turn.
What mighty power conducts the stars on high? Who bids these comets through our system fly? Who wafts the lightning to the icy pole,
And through our regions bids the thunders roll?
But say, what mightier power from nought could raise
The earth, the sun, and all that fiery maze
Of distant stars, that gild the azure sky,
And through the void in settled orbits fly?
That righteous Power, before whose heavenly eye
The stars are nothing, and the planets die;
Whose breath divine supports our mortal frame;
Who made the lion wild and lambkin tame.
At his command the bounteous Spring returns; Hot Summer, raging o'er the Atlantic, burns; The yellow Autumn crowns our sultry toil, And Winter's snows prepare the cumbrous soil.
By him the morning darts his purple ray;
To him the birds their early homage pay;
With vocal harmony the meadows ring,
While swains in concert heavenly praises sing.
Sway'd by his word, the nutrient dews descend,
And growing pastures to the moisture bend;
The vernal blossoms sip his falling showers;
The meads are garnish'd with his opening flowers.
For man, the object of his chiefest care,
Fowls he hath form'd to wing the ambient air:
For him the steer his lusty neck doth bend;
Fishes for him their scaly fins extend.
Wide o'er the orient sky the moon appears,
A foe to darkness and his idle fears;
Around her orb the stars in clusters shine,
And distant planets 'tend her silver shrine.
Hush'd are the busy numbers of the day;
On downy couch they sleep their hours away.
Hail, balmy sleep, that sooths the troubled mind!
Lock'd in thy arms our cares a refuge find.
Oft do you tempt us with delusive dreams,
When wildering fancy darts her dazzling beams:
Asleep, the lover with his mistress strays
Through lonely thickets and untrodden ways;
But when pale Cynthia's sable empire's fled,
And hovering slumbers shun the morning bed,
Rous'd by the dawn, he wakes with frequent sigh,
And all his flattering visions quickly fly.
Now owls and bats infest the midnight scene;
Dire snakes envenom'd twine along the green:
Forsook by man the rivers mourning glide,
And groaning echoes swell the noisy tide.
Straight to our cottage let us bend our way;
My drowsy powers confess sleep's magic sway.
Easy and calm upon our couch we'll lie,
While sweet reviving slumbers round our pillows fly.
NEAR the heart of a fair spreading grove,
Whose foliage shaded the green,
A shepherd, repining at love,
In anguish was heard to complain :
"O Cupid! thou wanton young boy!
Since, with thy invisible dart,
Thou hast robb'd a fond youth of his joy,
In return grant the wish of his heart.
Send a shaft so severe from thy bow,
(His pining, his sighs to remove),
That Stella, once wounded, may know
How keen are the arrows of love.
No swain once so happy as I,
Nor tun'd with more pleasure the reed;
My breast never vented a sigh,
Till Stella approach'd the gay mead.
With mirth, with contentment endow'd,
My hours they flew wantonly by;
I sought no repose in the wood,
Nor from my few sheep would I fly.
Now my reed I have carelessly broke;
Its melody pleases no more:
I pay no regard to a flock
That seldom hath wander'd before.
O Stella! whose beauty so fair
Excels the bright splendour of day,
Ah! have you no pity to share
With Damon thus fall'n to decay?
For you have I quitted the plain;
Forsaken my sheep and my fold:
For you in dull languor and pain
My tedious moments are told.
For you have my roses grown pale;
They have faded untimely away:
And will not such beauty bewail
A shepherd thus fall'n to decay?
Since your eyes still requite me with scorn,
And kill with their merciless ray;
Like a star at the dawning of morn,
I fall to their lustre a prey.
Some swain who shall mournfully go
To whisper love's sigh to the shade,
Will haply some charity shew,
And under the turf see me laid:
Would my love but in pity appear
On the spot where he moulds my cold grave,
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