You shall not boast your victory to-day,
Let him be judge who passes first this way:
And see the good Palæmon! trust me, swain,
You'll be more cautious how you brag again.

Damætas.

Delays I brook not; if you dare, proceed;
At singing no antagonist I dread.

Palæmon, listen to th' important songs,
To such debates attention strict belongs.

Palamon.

Sing then. A couch the flowery herbage yields: Now blossom all the trees, and all the fields; And all the woods their pomp of foliage wear, And Nature's fairest robe adorns the blooming year. Damætas first th' alternate lay shall raise: Th' inspiring Muses love alternate lays.

Damætas.

Jove first I sing; ye Muses, aid my lay;

All Nature owns his energy and sway;

The Earth and Heavens his sovereign bounty share, And to my verses he vouchsafes his care.

Menalcas.

With great Apollo I begin the strain, For I am great Apollo's favourite swain; For him the purple hyacinth I wear, And sacred bay to Phœbus ever dear.

Damætas.

The sprightly Galatea at my head
An apple flung, and to the willows fled;
But as along the level lawn she flew,

The wanton wish'd not to escape my view.

Menalcas.

I languish'd long for fair Amyntas' charme, But now he comes.unbidden to my arms,

And with my dogs is so familiar grown,
That my own Delia is no better known.

Damætas.

I lately mark'd where, 'midst the verdant shade,
Two parent-doves had built their leafy bed;
I from the nest the young will shortly take,
And to my love a handsome present make.
Menalcas.

Ten ruddy wildings, from a lofty bough,
That through the green leaves beam'd with yellow

glow,

I brought away, and to Amyntas bore;
To-morrow I shall send as many more.

Damætas.

Ah the keen raptures! when my yielding fair Breathed her kind whispers to my ravish'd ear! Waft, gentle gales, her accents to the skies,

That gods themselves may hear with sweet surprise

Menalcas.

What, though I am not wretched by your scorn.

Say, beauteous boy, say can I cease to mourn,

If, while I hold the nets, the boar

you face,

And rashly brave the dangers of the chase?

Damætas.

Send Phyllis home, Iolas, for to day

I celebrate my birth, and all is gay;

When for my crop the victim I prepare,

Iolas in our festival may share.

Menalcas.

Phyllis I love; she more than all can charm,

And mutual fires her gentle bosom warm:

Tears, when I leave her, bathe her beauteous eyes;

'A long, a long adieu, my love" she cries.

Damætas.

The wolf is dreadful to the woolly train,

Fatal to harvests is the crushing rain,

To the green woods the winds destructive prove,
To me the rage of mine offended love.

Menalcas.

The willow's grateful to the pregnant ewes, Showers to the corn, to kids the mountain-brows; More grateful far to me my lovely boy,In sweet Amyntas centres all my joy.

Damætas.

Even Pollio deigns to hear my rural lays; And cheers the bashful Muse with generous praise Ye sacred Nine, for your great patron feed

A beauteous heifer of the noblest breed.

Menalcas.

Pollio the art of heavenly song adorns;

Then let a bull be bred with butting horns,

And ample front, that bellowing, spurns the ground, Tears up the turf, and throws the sands around.

Damætas.

Him whom my Pollio loves may naught annoy;

May he like Pollio every wish enjoy ;

O may his happy lands with honey flow,

And on his thorns Assyrian roses blow!

Menalcas.

Who hates not foolish Bavius, let him love Thee, Mævius, and thy tasteless rhymes approve! Nor needs it thy admirer's reason shock

To milk the he goats, and the foxes yoke.

Damœtas.

Ye boys, on garlands who employ your care, And pull the creeping strawberries, beware.

Fly for your lives, and leave that fatal place,
A deadly snake lies lurking in the grass.
Menalcas.

Forbear, my flocks, and warily proceed,
Nor on that faithless bank securely tread;
The heedless ram late plunged amid the pool.
And in the sun now dries his reeking wool.
Damætas.

Ho, Tityrus! lead back the browsing flock, And let them feed at distance from the brook; At bathing time I to the shade will bring My goats, and wash them in the cooling spring.

Menalcas.

Haste, from the sultry lawn the flocks remove To the cool shelter of the shady grove : When burning noon the curdling udder dries, Th' ungrateful teats in vain the shepherd plies.

Damætas.

How lean my bull in yonder mead appears, Though the fat soil the richest pasture bears! Ah Love! thou reign'st supreme in every heart, Both flocks and shepherds languish with thy dart,

Menalcas.

Love has not injured my consumptive flocks, Yet bare their bones, and faded are their looks: What envious eye hath squinted on my dams, And sent its poison to my tender lambs?

Damætas.

Say in what distant land the eye descries But three short ells of all th' expanded skies? Tell this, and great Apollo be your name? Your skill is equal, equal be your fame.

Menalcas.

Say in what soil a wondrous flower is born,
Whose leaves the sacred name of kings adorn?
Tell this, and take my Phyllis to your arms,
And reign th' unrivall❜d sovereign of her charms.

Palamon.

"Tis not for me these high disputes to end;

Each to the heifer justly may pretend.

Such be their fortune, who so well can sing

From love what painful joys, what pleasing torments

spring.

Now, boys, obstruct the course of yonder rill;

The meadows have already drunk their fill.

PASTORAL IV.•

Pollio.

SICILIAN Muse, sublimer strains inspire,
And warm my bosom with diviner fire!
All take not pleasure in the rural scene,
In lowly tamarisks, and forests green.
If sylvan themes we sing, then let our lays
Deserve a consul's ear, a consul's praise.

In this fourth pastoral no particular landscape is delineated. The whole is a prophetic song of triumph. But as almost all the images and allusions are of the rural kind, it is no less a true bucolic than the others; if we admit the definition of a pastoral, given us by an author of the first rank,† who calls it 'A poem in which any action or passion is represented by its effects upon country life.'

It is of little importance to inquire on what occasion this poem was written. The spirit of prophetic enthusiasm that breathes through it, and the resemblance it bears in many places to the oriental manner, makes it not improbable that our poet composed it partly from some pieces of ancient prophecy that might have fallen into his hands, and that he afterwards inscribed it to his fr end and patron Pollio, on occasion of the birth of his son Salonnius.

The author of the Rambler.