Was gently waving up and down:

The primrose

That sweet blows

Adorned Nature’s verdant gown:

The purling rill

Stole down the hill,

And softly murmur’d thro’ the grove,

This was the time Ounagh stole out, to meet her barefoot love.[[45]]


[45]. Pastoral poetry, whether classic, amatory, or merely rural, owes its chief beauty to simplicity. Far-fetched points and fantastic versification destroy its generic attribute; and their use reminds one of the fashion of harmonising the popular melodies of a country, in order that young ladies may screech them with more complicated execution.