Thy songs, dear Thyrsis, more delight my mind
Than the soft whisper of the breathing wind,
Or whisp'ring groves, when some expiring breeze
Pants on the leaves, and trembles in the trees.
The first couplet of the original reading, and the phrase "trembles in the trees," in the second couplet, were from Dryden's Virg. Ecl. v. 128:
Not the soft whispers of the southern wind,
That play through trembling trees, delight me more.
[40] Milton, Il Penseroso:
When the gust hath blown his fill
Ending on the rustling leaves.
[41] Virg. Ecl. i. 7:
illius aram
Sæpe tener, nostris ab ovilibus, imbuet agnus.—Pope.
He partly follows Dryden's translation of his original:
The tender firstlings of my woolly breed
Shall on his holy altar often bleed.—Wakefield.
[42] Originally thus in the MS.