Let old Arcadia boast her ample plain,

165

The immortal huntress, and her virgin train: 160
Nor envy, Windsor! since thy shades have seen
As bright a goddess, and as chaste a queen;
Whose care, like hers, protects the sylvan reign,
The earth's fair light, and empress of the main.
Here too, 'tis sung, of old Diana stray'd,
And Cynthus' top forsook for Windsor shade;
Here was she seen o'er airy wastes to rove,
Seek the clear spring, or haunt the pathless grove;
Here, arm'd with silver bows, in early dawn,
Her buskin'd virgins traced the dewy lawn.

170

Above the rest a rural nymph was famed, Thy offspring, Thames; the fair Lodona named; Lodona's fate, in long oblivion cast,

The Muse shall sing, and what she sings shall last. Scarce could the goddess from her nymph be known,

175

But by the crescent and the golden zone.
She scorn'd the praise of beauty, and the care;
A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair;
A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,
And with her dart the flying deer she wounds. 180
It chanced, as eager of the chase, the maid
Beyond the forest's verdant limits stray'd,
Pan saw and loved; and, burning with desire,
Pursued her flight; her flight increased his fire.
Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, 185
When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;

172 The fair Lodona. This episode might have been more fortunate in another period, or in another country: it is too antique for the English taste, and too Grecian for the banks of the Thames. Pan also is a lover in whose passion we have not learned to sympathise.

Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves,
When through the clouds he drives the trembling

doves;

As from the god she flew with furious pace,

Or as the god, more furious, urged the chase. 190
Now fainting, sinking, pale, the nymph appears ;
Now close behind, his sounding steps she hears;
And now his shadow reach'd her
as she run,
His shadow lengthen'd by the setting sun;
And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,
Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.
In vain on father Thames she calls for aid,
Nor could Diana help her injured maid.
Faint, breathless, thus she pray'd, nor pray'd in
vain :-

:

195

'Ah, Cynthia! ah! though banish'd from thy train, Let me, O, let me to the shades repair,

201

My native shades;-there weep, and murmur there.'

205

She said, and melting as in tears she lay,
In a soft silver stream dissolved away.
The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps;
For ever murmurs, and for ever weeps ;
Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore,
And bathes the forest where she ranged before.
In her chaste current oft the goddess laves,
And with celestial tears augments the waves: 210
Oft in her glass the musing shepherd spies
The headlong mountains and the downward skies;
The watery landscape of the pendent woods,
And absent trees that tremble in the floods:

207 Still bears the name. The river Lodon.

In the clear azure gleam the flocks are seen,

215

And floating forests paint the waves with green, Through the fair scene roll slow the lingering streams,

Then foaming pour along, and rush into the Thames.

Thou, too, great father of the British floods! With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods; 220 Where towering oaks their growing honors

rear,

225

And future navies on thy shores appear.
Not Neptune's self from all her streams receives
A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives:
No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear:
Nor Po so swells the fabling poet's lays,
While led along the skies his current strays,
As thine, which visits Windsor's famed abodes,
To grace the mansion of our earthly gods:
Nor all his stars above a lustre show,
Like the bright beauties on thy banks below;
Where Jove, subdued by mortal passion still,
Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.

230

Happy the man whom this bright court ap

proves,

235

His sovereign favors, and his country loves: Happy next him, who to these shades retires, Whom nature charms, and whom the Muse in

spires;

Whom humbler joys of home-felt quiet please;
Successive study, exercise, and ease.

He gathers health from herbs the forest yields,
And of their fragrant physic spoils the fields;

240

With chemic art exalts the mineral powers,
And draws the aromatic souls of flowers;
Now marks the course of rolling orbs on high;
O'er figured worlds now travels with his eye;, 246
Of ancient writ unlocks the learned store,
Consults the dead, and lives past ages o'er;
Or, wandering thoughtful in the silent wood,
Attends the duties of the wise and good;
To observe a mean, be to himself a friend,
To follow nature, and regard his end;

250

255

Or looks on heaven with more than mortal eyes;
Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,
Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,
Survey the region, and confess her home!
Such was the life great Scipio once admired;
Thus Atticus, and Trumball thus retired.

261

Ye sacred Nine! that all my soul possess, Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless, Bear me, O, bear me to sequester'd scenes, The bowery mazes, and surrounding greens; To Thames's banks which fragrant breezes fill, Or where ye Muses sport on Cooper's-hill. On Cooper's-hill eternal wreaths shall grow 265 While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall

flow.

251 To observe a mean. Warburton's loose recollection here gives Warton a triumph, of which he is never slow to avail himself. Warburton had ascribed the origin of the passage to Lucretius: his critic points it out in Lucan's

-servare modum, finemque tenere, Naturamque sequi, &c.-Book ii. 381.

265 On Cooper's-hill eternal wreaths shall grow. The prediction, unlike other prophecies, was farther from fulfilment the farther it advanced in years. The popularity of Cooper'shill has long decayed, without a hope of revival. Johnson

I seem through consecrated walks to rove;

I hear soft music die along the grove.

Led by the sound, I roam from shade to shade, By godlike poets venerable made:

Here his first lays majestic Denham sung;

270

There the last numbers flow'd from Cowley's tongue.

O, early lost! what tears the river shed,

275

When the sad pomp along his banks was led!
His drooping swans on every note expire,
And on his willows hung each Muse's lyre.
Since fate relentless stopp'd their heavenly
voice,

No more the forests ring, or groves rejoice;
Who now shall charm the shades, where Cowley
strung

His living harp, and lofty Denham sung? 280

gives Denham the fame of being at least the English inventor of local poetry.' But no people are less tolerant of description than the English, and the fame expired with the novelty.

22 Cowley's tongue. Cowley, disappointed with life, thought, like other disappointed solicitors of the world's favor, to escape its desires, by leaving it behind. His first determination was to put the Atlantic between him and his cares, and withdraw to America. It may be regretted that he did not fulfil this intention: the pictures of savage life, the struggles of rude civilisation, and the grandeur of nature yet untouched by the hand of man, might have been powerfully delineated by the poet and the philosopher. But Cowley was contented with scorning the world at a shorter distance: he took a house at Chertsey, where he died in 1667, of a boyish frolic, in his forty-ninth year. Cowley's life was imbittered by his political follies: idly attached to the Stuarts, whom no man ever trusted but to be betrayed, or served but to be neglected, he wasted the vigor of his days in hazards, which were repaid only with the cheap panegyric of Charles II.:-that 'when Cowley died, he did not leave a better man behind him in England.'