Fed with nourishment divine,

The dewy morning's gentle wine!

Nature waits upon thee still,
And thy verdant cup does fill,
'Tis fill'd, wherever thou doft tread,
Nature's felf's thy Ganymed.

Thou doft drink, and dance, and fing;
Happier than the happiest king!

All the fields, which thou doft fee,
All the plants, belong to thee,
All that fummer hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice.
Man for thee does fow and plow;
Farmer he, and landlord thou!
Thou doft innocently joy;

Nor does thy luxury destroy;

The fhepherd gladly heareth thee,

More harmonious than he.

Thee, country hinds with gladness hear,

Prophet of the ripen'd year!

Thee, Phoebus loves, and does infpire;

Phœbus is himself thy fire.

To thee, of all things upon earth,

Life is no longer than thy mirth.

Happy infect, happy thou

Doft neither age nor winter know.

But, when thou'ft drunk, and danc'd, and fung

Thy fill, the flowery leaves among,

(Voluptuous, and wife, with all,

Epicurean animal !)

G 3

Sated

Sated with thy fummer feast,

Thou retir'st to endless rest.

THE

XI.

SWALLOW.

FOOLISH prater, what doft thou

So early at my window do,

With thy tuneless serenade ?

Well't had been, had Tereus made

Thee, as dumb as Philomel ;

There his knife had done but well.

In thy undiscover'd neft

Thou doft all the winter reft,

And dreameft o'er thy fummer joys,
Free from the ftormy feafon's noife:
Free from th' ill thou'ft done to me;
Who disturbs, or feeks out thee?
Hadit thou all the charming notes
Of the wood's poetic throats,
All thy art could never pay
What thou'ft ta'en from me away;
Cruel bird, thou'ft ta'en away
A dream out of my arms to-day,
A dream, that ne'er must equal'd be
By all that waking eyes may fee.
Thou, this damage to repair,
Nothing half fo fweet or fair,

Nothing half fo good can'ft bring,

Though men say, Thou bring ft the Spring.

ELEGY

XII.

ELEGY UPON ANACREON, who was choaked by a GRAPE-STONE.

Spoken by the God of Love.

HOW fhall I lament thine end,

My best fervant, and my friend?
Nay, and, if from a deity
So much deify'd as I,

It found not too profane and odd,
Oh my mafter, and my god!
For 'tis true, moft mighty poet,
(Though I like not, men fhould know it)
I am in naked nature less,

Lefs by much, than in thy dress.

All thy verfe is fofter far

Than the downy feathers are
Of my wings, or of my arrows,
Of my mother's doves, or sparrows.
Sweet, as lovers freshest kisses,
Or, their riper following bliffes,
Graceful, cleanly, fmooth, and round,
All with Venus' girdle bound;
And thy life was all the while

Kind and gentle, as thy ftile.
The finooth-pac'd hours of ev'ry day
Glided numerously away.
Like thy verfe, each hour did pass;
Sweet and short, like that it was.

Some do but their youth allow me,
Juft what they, by nature, owe me ;
The time, that's mine, and not their own,
The certain tribute of my crown.
When they grow old, they grow to be
Too bufy, or too wife, for me.

Thou wert wifer, and didst know,
None too wife for love can grow ;
Love was with thy life entwin'd
Close, as heat with fire is join'd,
A powerful brand prefcrib'd the date
Of thine, like Meleager's fate.
Th' antiperiftafis [] of age

More enflam'd thy amorous rage ;
Thy filver hairs yielded me more,
Than even golden curls, before.
Had I the power of creation,
As I have of generation,
Where I the matter must obey,
And cannot work plate out of clay;
My creatures fhould be all like thee,
'Tis thou should their idea be.

[p] Antiperiftafis] This hard word only means, compreffion. The word is ufed by naturalifts to exprefs the power, which one quality has, by pressing on all fides, to augment its contrary as here the cold, with which old age is environed, increases heat. He expreffes this quaint idea more plainly in two verfes of THE MISTRESS (left out in this collection), where he says

Flames their most vigorous heat do hold, "And pureft light, if compafs'd round with cold." The Requeft, St. 3.

They,

They, like thee, should throughly hate
Business, honour, title, state.

Other wealth they should not know,
But what my living mines beftow;
The pomp of kings they should confefs
At their crownings to be less
Than a lover's humblest guise,
When at his mistress' feet he lies.
Rumour they no more should mind
Than men fafe-landed do, the wind;
Wisdom itself they should not hear,
When it prefumes to be severe.
Beauty alone they should admire ;
Nor look at fortune's vain attire,
Nor ask what parents it can fhew;
With dead, or old, t'has nought to do.
They should not love yet all, or any,
But very much, and very many.
All their life fhould gilded be
With mirth, and wit, and gaiety,
Well remembering and applying

The neceffity of dying.

Their chearful heads should always wear

All that crowns the flowery year.

They fhould always laugh, and fing,

And dance, and ftrike th' harmonious string.
Verse should from their tongue fo flow,
As if it in the mouth did grow,

As fwiftly answering their command,
As tunes obey the artful hand.