The ruin, with a silent tear revolves

The fame and fortune of imperious Rome.

You too, O nymphs, and your unenvious aid
The rural powers confess; and still prepare
For you their choicest treasures. Pan commands,
Oft as the Delian king with Sirus holds
The central heavens, the father of the grove
Commands his Dryads over your abodes
To spread their deepest umbrage. Well the god
Remembereth how indulgent ye supp ied
Your general dews to nurse them in their prime.
Pales, the pasture's queen, where'er ye stray,
Pursues your steps, delighted; and the path
With living verdure clothes. Around your haunts
The laughing Chloris, with profusest hand,
Throws wide her blooms, her odours.

Pomona seeks to dwell

Still with you

and o'er the lawns,

And o'er the vale of Richmond, where with Thames

Ye love to wander, Amalthea pours

Well-pleas'd the wealth of that Ammonian horn,

Her dower; unmindful of the fragrant isles

Nysæan or Atlantic. Nor canst thou,
(Albeit oft, ungrateful, thou dost mock
The beverage of the sober Naiad's urn,
O Bromius, O Lenæan) nor canst thou
Disown the powers whose bounty, ill repaid,
With nectar, feeds thy tendrils. Yet from me,
Yet, blameless nymphs, from my delighted lyre,
Accept the rites your bounty well may claim,
Nor heed the scoffings of the Edonian band.
For better praise awaits you. Thames, your sire,
As down the verdant slope your duteous rills
Descend, the tribute stately Thames receives,
Delighted; and your piety applauds ;
And bids his copious tide roll on secure,
For faithful are his daughters; and with words
Auspicious gratulates the bark, which now
His banks forsaking, her adventurous wings
Yield to the breeze, with Albion's happy gifts
Extremest isles to bless. And oft at morn,
When Hermes, from Olympus bent o'er earth
To hear the words of Jove, on yonder hill

Stoops lightly-sailing; oft intent your springs He views and waving o'er some new-born stream His blest pacific wand, " And yet," he cries, "Yet," cries the son of Maia, "though recluse "And silent be your stores, from you, fair nymphs, "Flows wealth and kind society to men. "By you my function and my honour'd name "Do I possess; while o'er the Bœtic vale,

"Or through the towers of Memphis, or the palms By sacred Ganges water'd, I conduct

"The English merchant: with the buxom fleece "Of fertile Ariconium while I clothe

"Sarmatian kings; or to the household gods
"Of Syria, from the bleak Cornubian shore,
Dispense the mineral treasure which of old
"Sidonian pilots sought, when this fair land
"Was yet unconscious of those generous arts
"Which wise Phoenicia from their native clime
"Transplanted to a more indulgent heaven."

Such are the words of Hermes: such the praise,
O Naiads, which from tongues celestial waits
Your bounteous deeds. From bounty issueth power:
And those who, sedulous in prudent works,
Relieve the wants of nature, Jove repays

With noble wealth, and his own seat on earth,
Fit judgments to pronounce, and curb the might
Of wicked men. Your kind unfailing urns
Not vainly to the hospitable arts

Of Hermes yield their store. For, O ye nymphs,
Hath he not won the unconquerable queen

Of arms to court your friendship? You she owns
The fair associates who extend her sway
Wide o'er the mighty deep; and grateful things
Of you she uttereth, oft as from the shore
Of Thames, or Medway's vale, or the green banks
Of Vecta, she her thundering navy leads
To Calpe's foaming channel, or the rough
Cantabrian surge; her auspices divine
Imparting to the senate and the prince
Of Albion, to dismay barbaric kings,
The Iberian, or the Celt. The pride of kings
Was ever scorn'd by Pallas: and of old

Rejoic'd the virgin, from the brazen prow

Of Athens o'er Ægina's gloomy surge,

To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming all
The Persian's promis'd glory, when the realms
Of Indus and the soft Ionian clime,

Το

When Libya's torrid champain and the rocks
Of cold Imaüs join'd their servile bands,
sweep the sons of liberty from earth.
In vain : Minerva on the bounding prow
Of Athens stood, and with the thunder's voice
Denounc'd her terrors on their impious heads,
And shook her burning ægis. Xerxes saw:
From Heracléum, on the mountain's height
Thron'd in his golden car, he knew the sign
Celestial; felt unrighteous hope forsake

His faultering heart, and turn'd his face with shame.
Hail, ye who share the stern Minerva's power;
Who arm the hand of liberty for war:
And give to the renown'd Britannic name
To awe contending monarchs; yet benign,
Yet mild of nature: to the works of peace
More prone, and lenient of the many ills
Which wait on human life. Your gentle aid
Hygeia well can witness, she who saves,
From poisonous cates and cups of pleasing bane,
The wretch devoted to the entangling snares
Of Bacchus and of Comus.

To Cynthia's lonely haunts.

Him she leads

To spread the toils,

To beat the coverts, with the jovial horn

At dawn of day to summon the loud hounds,

She calls the lingering sluggard from his dreams:
And where his breast may drink the mountain breeze,
And where the fervor of the sunny vale

May beat upon his brow, through devious paths
Beckons his rapid courser. Nor when ease,
Cool ease and welcome slumbers have becalm'd
His eager bosom, does the queen of health
Her pleasing care withhold. His decent board
She guards, presiding; and the frugal powers
With joy sedate leads in and while the brown
Ennæan dame with Pan presents her stores;
While changing still, and comely in the change,

:

Vertumnus and the hours before him spread
The garden's banquet: you to crown his feast,
To crown his feast, O Naiads, you the fair
Hygeia calls and from your shelving seats,
And groves of poplar, plenteous cups ye bring,
To slake his veins : till soon a purer tide
Flows down those loaded channels: washeth off
The dregs of luxury, the lurking seeds

Of crude disease; and through the abodes of life
Sends vigour, sends repose.
Hail, Naiads: hail,
Who give, to labour, health; to stooping age,
The joys which youth had squander'd. Oft your urns
Will invoke and, frequent in your praise,
Abash the frantic Thyrsus with my song.

For not estrang'd from your benignant arts
Is he, the god, to whose mysterious shrine
My youth was sacred, and my votive cares
Belong; the learned Pæon. Oft when all
His cordial treasures he hath search'd in vain ;
When herbs, and potent trees, and drops of balm
Rich with the genial influence of the sun,
(To rouse dark fancy from her plaintive dreams,
To brace the nerveless arm, with food to win
Sick appetite, or hush the unquiet breast
Which pines with silent passion) he in vain
Hath prov'd; to your deep mansions he descends,
Your gates of humid rock, your dim arcades,
He entereth; where impurpled veins of ore
Gleam on the roof; where through the rigid mine
Your trickling rills insinuate. There the god
From your indulgent hands the streaming bowl
Wafts to his pale-cy'd suppliants; wafts the seeds
Metallic, and the elemental salts

Wash'd from the pregnant glebe. They drink: and

soon

Flies pain; flies inauspicious care and soon

The social haunt or unfrequented shade

Hears Io, lo Pæan; as of old,

When Python fell. And, O propitious nymphs!

Oft as for helpless mortals I implore

Your salutary springs, through every urn

O shed your healing treasures.

With the first

And finest breath, which from the genial strife
Of mineral fermentation springs, like light
O'er the fresh morning's vapours, lustrate then
The fountain, and inform the rising wave.

My lyre shall pay your bounty. Scorn not ye
That humble tribute. Though a mortal hand
Excite the strings to utterance, yet for themes
Not unregarded of celestial powers,

I frame their language; and the muses deign
To guide the pious tenor of my lay.
The muses (sacred by their gifts divine)
In early days did to my wondering sense
Their secrets oft reveal: oft my rais'd ear
In slumber felt their music: oft at noon
Or hour of sunset, by some lonely stream,
In field or shady grove, they taught me words
Of power from death and envy to preserve

The good man's name. Whence yet with grateful

mind,

And offerings unprofan'd by ruder eye,

My vows I send, my homage, to the seats
Of rocky Cirrha, where with you they dwell:
Where you their chaste companions they admit
Through all the hallow'd scene: where oft intent,
And leaning o'er Castalia's mossy verge,
They mark the cadence of your confluent urns,
How tuneful, yielding gratefullest repose
To their consorted measure: till again,
With emulation all the sounding choir,
And bright Apollo, leader of my song,
Their voices through the liquid air exalt,

And sweep their lofty strings: those powerful strings
That charm the mind of gods: that fill the courts

Of wide Olympus with oblivion sweet

Of evils, with immortal rest from cares :
Assuage the terrors of the throne of Jove;
And quench the formidable thunderbolt
Of unrelenting fire. With slacken'd wings
While now the solemn concert breathes around,
Incumbent o'er the sceptre of his lord

Sleeps the stern eagle; by the number'd notes,
Possess'd; and satiate with the melting tone: