I know thee, Love, in deserts thou wert bred,
And at the dugs of savage tygers fed;
Alien of birth, usurper of the plains.
Dryden.
which, Pope endeavouring to copy, was carried to still greater impropriety:
I know thee, Love, wild as the raging main,
More fierce than tygers on the Libyan plain;
Thou wert from Ætna's burning entrails torn;
Begot in tempests, and in thunders born!
Sentiments like these, as they have no ground in nature, are indeed of little value in any poem; but in pastoral they are particularly liable to censure, because it wants that exaltation above common life, which in tragick or heroick writings often reconciles us to bold flights and daring figures.