Yet, let her try her utmost force, my heart
She shall not change; the world shall never say
She moves me to forsake so sweet an art;
In poesy's still walks, embowered with bay,
Apollo and the Nine shall yet impart
Leisure, and life, and language, to display
The least of thine accomplishments, the most
My feeble powers can ever hope to boast.
Let it not irk thee if I sing meanwhile
The scenes and sylvans thou hast loved, nor deem
Ill of this untrimmed portion of my style,
Which once thy goodness held in kind esteem;
Midst arms—with scarce one pause from bloody toil,
Where war's hoarse trumpet breaks the poet's dream,
Have I these moments stolen, oft claimed again,
Now taking up the sword, and now the pen.
To the wild music of my oaten reed
Listen thou then, though, naked and ungraced
With ornamental touches, it indeed
Is all unmeet to strike thine ear of taste;
But oft pure thoughts from artless lips succeed,
Chaste witnesses of sentiments as chaste,
To win the will, and pleasure more impart
Than all the' elaborate eloquence of art.
I, for this cause, though others failed my theme,
Merit thine ear; the gift which at thy feet
I cast, receive with favour; I shall deem
Myself, sweet friend, enriched by the receipt.
Of four choice Nymphs that from loved Tagus' stream
Proceed, I sing; Phyllodoce the sweet,
Dynamene, fair Clymene, and last,
Nyse, in loveliness by none surpassed.
In a sweet solitude beside the flood,
Is a green grove of willows, trunk-entwined
With ivies climbing to the top, whose hood
Of glossy leaves, with all its boughs combined,
So interchains and canopies the wood,
That the hot sunbeams can no access find;
The water bathes the mead, the flowers around
It glads, and charms the ear with its sweet sound.
The glassy river here so smoothly slid
With pace so gentle on its winding road,
The eye, in sweet perplexity misled,
Could scarcely tell which way the current flowed.
Combing her locks of gold, a Nymph her head
Raised from the water where she made abode,
And as the various landscape she surveyed,
Saw this green meadow, full of flowers and shade.
That wood, the flowery turf, the winds that wide
Diffused its fragrance, filled her with delight;
Birds of all hues in the fresh bowers she spied,
Retired, and resting from their weary flight.
It was the hour when hot the sunbeams dried
Earth's spirit up—'twas noontide still as night;
Alone, at times, as of o'erbrooding bees
Mellifluous murmurs sounded from the trees.
Having a long time lingered to behold
The shady place, in meditative mood,
She waved aside her flowing locks of gold,
Dived to the bottom of the crystal flood,
And when to her sweet sisters she had told
The charming coolness of this vernal wood,
Prayed and advised them, to its green retreat
To take their tasks, and pass the hours of heat.
She had not long to sue,—the lovely three
Took up their work, and looking forth descried,
Peopled with violets, the sequestered lea,
And toward it hastened: swimming, they divide
The clear glass, wantoning in sportful glee
Through the smooth wave; till, issuing from the tide,
Their white feet dripping to the sands they yield,
And touch the border of that verdant field.
Pressing the' elastic moss with graceful tread,
They wrung the moisture from their shining hair,
Which, shaken loose, entirely overspread
Their beauteous shoulders and white bosoms bare;
Then, drawing forth rich webs whose spangled thread
Might in fine beauty with themselves compare,
They sought the shadiest covert of the grove,
And sat them down, conversing as they wove.