EGLOGUE IX. MERIS.

LYCIDAS. MORIS.

LYCIDAS.

WHITHER, O Moris, do thy feet [bear] thee?
Is 't to the city, whither leads the way?

MERIS.

O Lycidas, we have reached the day alive,
When a strange owner of our little farm,

(Which ne'er we feared,) should tell us, "These are mine; Move off, old tenants." Now o'erborne, in woe,

Since chance is shifting all things, we to him

(Bad luck with them!) are carrying these kids.

LYCIDAS.

I sooth had surely heard, that where the hills
Begin to slope them off, and sink their ridge,
With gentle dip, as far as to the stream,
And to the aged beech, now broken tops,
All by his lays had thy Menalcas saved.

MERIS.

Hadst heard? Ay, it has been a rumour; but
Our lays as much avail, O Lycidas,
Amid the arms of Mars, as do, say they,
Chaonian doves when th' eagle swoops.
A crow upon the left from hollow holm
Had me forewarned somehow to nip i' the bud

But save

10

Line 19. Or, if this version seems a little too free, it may be thus varied :

The quarrel, neither would this Mœris thine,
Nor would Menalcas be alive himself.

LYCIDAS.

Alas! occurs to any guilt so deep?

Alas! were consolations thine from us,

Well nigh along with thee, Menalcas, reft?

Who could the nymphets sing? Who strew the ground
With blooming plants, or mantle o'er the springs

With emerald shade? Or [who could sing] the lays,
Which I caught up by stealth from thee of late,
When thou to Amaryllis, our delight,

Wouldst take thee:-" Tityrus, till I return,
(Short is the journey,) feed thou my she-goats,
And them to watering drive when they are fed,
O Tityrus; and, in thy driving them,
Of going in the way of the he-goat,-
That fellow butteth with his horn,-beware."

MERIS.

Nay rather those which, not yet finished off,
To Varus did he sing: "Varus, thy name,
Let but remain our Mantua to us,-
Mantua, ah! a neighbour, too, too near
Unfortunate Cremona,-as they chant

The swans shall waft aloft unto the stars."

40

Had me forewarned by any means to quash
The fresh disputes, nor would, &c.

Line 41. Shakspeare thus alludes to the warbling of the swan :

"Let music sound while he doth make his choice;

Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,

LYCIDAS.

So may thy swarms escape Cyrnean yews!
So may, upon the cytisus full-fed,

Begin, if aught

Thy kine swell out their teats!
Me also have a poet made

Thou hast.

Pieria's ladies; I have verses too;

Me likewise do the shepherds call a bard:
But not in them a weak believer I.

For [lays] I seem to warble, neither yet
Of Varius nor of Cinna worthy, but

To scream a goose among the tuneful swans.

MERIS.

"Hither come,

That sooth I am about, and silently,
Lycidas, with myself I turn it o'er,
If I were able to remember it;
Neither is mean the sonnet:
O Galatea; for what sport lies in the waves?
Here spring all bright; here, round the rills,
The earth unbosoms her enamelled flowers;
The silver poplar here o'erhangs the grot,
And limber vines pleach bowers. Hither come;
The frantic waves allow to lash the shores."

LYCIDAS.

What those, which I had heard thee when alone

And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rést."

"Thus on Mæander's flowery margin lies
The expiring swan, and as he sings he dies."

Garth, still more musically:

Pope, Rape of the Lock, canto v.

"The tuneful swans on gliding rivers float,
And warbling dirges die on every note."

Dispensary, canto iv.

Warbling beneath the cloudless night? The air

I recollect, could I retain the words.

MORIS.

"Why, Daphnis, on the ancient risings of the signs
Upgaze? Lo! Dionæan Cæsar's star

Hath issued forth; the star, whereby corn-fields
Might in their crops be joyful, and whereby
The bunch might draw its hue on sunny hills.
Graft, Daphnis, thy pear-trees; posterity

Shall cull thy fruits." All things age sweeps away,
The memory too. I recollect that oft, a boy,
The lingering suns I buried as I sang:

So many songs are now forgot by me.

Now very voice eke Moris flies; the wolves
Have first seen Moris. But, however, these
Full oft to thee Menalcas will recite.

LYCIDAS.

By pleading pretexts our enjoyments thou

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Lane 71. This idea is beautifully expressed by Dryden : "O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down, Till with his silent sickle they are mown."

And that old common

Will one day end it."

"The end crowns all;

arbitrator, Time,

Shakspeare, Troilus and Cressida, iv. 5.

73. "How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day, While summer suns roll unperceived away!"

Pope, Ep. to Mr. Jervas.

A. Philips, somewhat differently from Virgil: "For many songs and tales of mirth had I

To chase the loit'ring sun adowne the sky."

Past. 1.

76. To this notion Dryden alludes: Hind and Panther, 551, 2: "The surly Wolf, with secret envy burst,

Yet could not howl: the Hind had seen him first."

Deferr'st for long. And now, all lulled for thee,
The surface of the lake is still; and, look!
The breezy whisper's every breath has fallen.
From this we have exactly half the way;
For the tomb of Bianor 'gins to show.

Here, where the swains are stripping the thick leaves,
Here, Maris, sing we; here set down the kids:
We ne'ertheless shall at the town arrive.
Or, if we fear that night may gather rain
Before, we may (,the road will irk us less,)
Go singing still; that singing we may go,
I will discumber thee of this thy load.

MORIS.

Cease more, O swain; and that which presseth now
Let us perform: the songs we better then,

When he shall have arrived himself, shall sing.

Line 79. Perhaps Moris was influenced by the motive which swayed Portia: Shakspeare, Merchant of Venice, iii. 2:

"But 'tis to pieze the time,

To eke it, and to draw it out in length."

80. So Parnell in his beautiful Night-piece on Death: "The slumb'ring breeze forgets to breathe;

The lake is smooth and clear beneath."

82. Medius seems not to be used by classical writers strictly in the sense of "half;" but I know not how to make decent English of the sense "middle," without an objectionable paraphrase.

88. Or, if tædit be read with Wagner: "the journey irketh less."