8. But father, since this land, these townes and towres, No thundring drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe. 9. Haply iust heau'ns defence and shield of right, By pouertie, neglected and despised. 10. O Pouertie, chefe of the heau'nly brood, These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates 11. We little wish, we need but little wealth, From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed; These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth And to the fishes, birds, and beastes giue heed, 12. Time was (for each one hath his doting time, 13. Entised on with hope of future gaine, I suffred long what did my soule displease; I felt my native strength at last decrease; I gan my losse of lustie losse of lustie yeeres complaine, And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace; 14. While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention; To turne her home to her desired Lord. 15. She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate! That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue, Yet liuest now in this contented state, Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue, To entertaine me as a willing mate In shepherds life, which I admire and loue; Within these pleasant groues perchance my hart Of her discomforts may vnload some part. 16. If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare, With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse) 18. Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide And milke her goates, and in their folds them place, POMFRET. OF Mr. JOHN POMFRET nothing is known but from a slight and confused account prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he was the son of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton, in Bedfordshire; that he was bred at Cambridge*, entered into orders, and was rector of Malden in Bedfordshire, and might have risen in the Church; but that, when he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, for institution to a living of considerable value, to which he had been presented, he found a troublesome obstruction raised by a malicious interpretation of some passage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he considered happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of a wife. : This reproach was easily obliterated for it had happened to Pomfret as to almost all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from his purpose, and was then married. * He was of Queen's College there, and, by the Universityregister, appears to have taken his Bachelor's degree in 1684, and his Master's 1698. H.-His Father was of Trinity. C. The malice of his enemies had however a very fatal consequence: the delay constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the small-pox, and died in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that class of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only their own amusement. His Choice exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice. In his other poems there is an easy volubility; the pleasure of smooth metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with ponderous or entangled with intricate sentiment. He pleases many; and he who pleases many must have some species of merit. |