"Here lies within this stony shade
Nature's darling; whom she made
Her fairest model, her brief story,
In him heaping all her glory."

On green lap, cf. Milton, Song on May Morning:

"The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose."

[85.] Lucid Avon. Cf. Seneca, Thyest. 129: "gelido flumine lucidus Alpheos."

[86.] The mighty mother. That is, Nature. Pope, in the Dunciad, i. 1, uses the same expression in a satirical way:

"The Mighty Mother, and her Son, who brings
The Smithfield Muses to the ear of kings,
I sing."

See also Dryden, Georgics, i. 466:

"On the green turf thy careless limbs display,
And celebrate the mighty mother's day."

[87.] The dauntless child. Cf. Horace, Od. iii. 4, 20: "non sine dis animosus infans." Wakefield quotes Virgil, Ecl. iv. 60: "Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem." Mitford points out that the identical expression occurs in Sandys's translation of Ovid, Met. iv. 515:

"the child
Stretch'd forth its little arms, and on him smil'd."