While o'er the fields the flying boars ye trace, DAMOETAS. Send home my Phyllis, dear Iolas haste, Come thou, Oh swain! the welcome homage pay. MENALCAS. Young Phyllis more than other nymphs I prize; My parting steps she viewed with weeping eyes; Then from her lips these moving accents fell, Farewel, Oh shepherd! lovely youth farewel. DAMOETAS. The wolf is dreadful to the bleating fold; MENALCAS. Sweet to the new-sown seeds are gentle show'rs; DAMOETAS. My songs, though rustic, Pollis deigns to hear; MENALCAS. My Pollis writes new songs; a bull prepare, DAMOETAS. Who loves thee, Pollis, may he grow in fame, MENALCAS. Who hates not Bavius, nor contemns his praise, DAMOETAS. Ye boys, sweet flow'rs and low grown fruits forsake; Lo! the deep grass conceals a deadly snake. MENALCAS. Trust not the bank too far, ye bleating race; DAMOETAS. Oh Tit'rus! from the flood these kids convey; MENALCAS. Boys fold your flocks, if heat the milk should dry, How oft in vain the empty teats we'll ply! DAMOETAS. How lank's my bull, tho' graz'd in fertile fields! MENALCAS. No ills like these my eager flocks ensnare, DAMOETAS. Say in what fields, my sweetly warbling swain, MENALCAS. Say in what fields the flow'rs fresh blooming grow, PALAEMON. What song excels, is past my power to name; } ECLOGUE THE FIFTH. ARGUMENT. The subject of this beautiful eclogue is the death and deification of Julius Cæsar. The poet seems to be much elevated by the importance of the subject. The composition is laboured and elegant; and the scene beautiful, and adapted to the solemnity of the occasion, as the shepherds sit and sing under a canopy of wild vines in the solemn gloom of a grotto, and surrounded with a grove of hazles and elms. The season, summer, but the time of the day does not appear to be specified. DAPHNIS, MENALCAS, MOPSUS. MENALCAS. SINCE thus we meet, dear youth, both skilful swains, Why rest we not in this sweet sylvan scene, MOPSUS. To you, mine elder, I obedience yield, Whether we rest amidst the flow'ry field, O'erhung with branches of wide spreading trees, MENALCAS. Of all the swains, whom on these hills we view, MOPSUS. What, if this youth, inflam'd with rural praise, MENALCAS. Begin ye first; if Phillis' am'rous fires, MOPSUS. Rather I'll try these strains of newer date, I carv'd and sung between; attend with care, MENALCAS. As fewer charms the shrub than olive shows, MOPSUS. Dear youth no more, the solemn grot appears; When his sad fate the mournful mother knew, So our fair youth adorn'd the shepherd train. Pales and Phoebus from our plains withdrew. When oft the fields we sow'd with choicest grain, Wild oats and darnel spread their wretched reign; |