Winds, on your wings to heav'n her accents bear,
Such words as heav'n alone is fit to hear.
[44] It stood thus at first:
Let rich Iberia golden fleeces boast,
Her purple wool the proud Assyrian coast,
Blest Thames's shores, &c.—Pope.
[45] It is evident from the mention of the "golden sands" of Pactolus, and the "amber" of the poplars in connection with the Thames, that he had in view Denham's description in Cooper's Hill:
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold.—Wakefield.
The sisters of Phæton, according to the classical fable, were, upon the death of their brother, turned into poplars on the banks of the Po, and the tears which dropt from these trees were said to be converted into amber.
[46] This couplet is a palpable imitation of Virgil, Ecl. vii. 67:
Sæpius at si me, Lycida formose, revisas,
Fraxinus in silvis cedet tibi, pinus in hortis.—Wakefield.
The entire speech is a parody of the lines quoted by Wakefield, and of the lines which immediately precede them in Virgil's Eclogue. The passage omitted by Wakefield is thus translated in vol. i. of Tonson's Miscellany:
Bacchus the vine, the laurel Phœbus loves;
Fair Venus cherishes the myrtle groves;
Phyllis the hazel loves, while Phyllis loves that tree,
Myrtles and laurels of less fame shall be.