PASTORAL X.

OR,

GALLUS.

ARGUMENT.

Gallus, a great patron of Virgil, and an excellent poet, was very deeply in love with one Cytheris, whom he calls Lycoris, and who had forsaken him for the company of a soldier. The poet therefore supposes his friend Gallus retired, in his height of melancholy, into the solitudes of Arcadia (the celebrated scene of pastorals), where he represents him in a very lauguishing condition, with all the rural deities about him, pitying his hard usage, and condoling his misfortune.

HY sacred succor, Arethusa, bring,

TH

To crown my labor ('tis the last I sing,)
Which proud Lycoris may with pity view.

The muse is mournful, though the numbers few;
Refuse me not a verse, to grief and Gallus due.
So may thy silver streams beneath the tide,
Unmix'd with briny seas, securely glide.
Sing then, my Gallus, and his hopeless vows;
Sing while my cattle crop the tender browse.
The vocal grove shall answer to the sound,

And echo, from the vales, the tuneful voice rebound.
What lawns or woods withheld you from his aid,
Ye nymphs, when Gallus was to love betray'd;

To love, unpitied by the cruel maid?

Not steepy Pindus could retard your course,
Nor cleft Parnassus, nor the Aonian source:
Nothing that owns the Muses, could suspend
Your aid to Gallus :-Gallus is their friend.
For him the lofty laurel stands in tears,
And hung with humid pearls the lowly shrub appears.
Mænalian pines the godlike swain bemoan,
When, spread beneath a rock, he sigh'd alone;
And cold Lycæus wept from ev'ry dropping stone.
The sheep surround their shepherd, as he lies.
Blush not, sweet poet, nor the name despise :

Along the streams, his flock Adonis fed;
And yet the queen of beauty blest his bed.
The swains and tardy neatherds came, and last
Menalcas, wet with beating winter mast.

Wond'ring they ask'd from whence arose thy flame.
Yet more amaz'd, thy own Apollo came.

Flush'd were his cheeks, and glowing were his eyes: "Is she thy care? is she thy care?" he cries,

64

'Thy false Lycoris flies thy love and thee,

And for thy rival tempts the raging sea,

The forms of horrid war, and heav'n's inclemency."
Silvanus came his brows a country crown
Of fennel, and of nodding lilies, drown.
Great Pan arriv'd; and we beheld him too,
His cheeks and temples of vermilion hue.
"Why, Gallus, this immod' rate grief?" he cried.
"Think'st thou that love with tears is satisfied?
The meads are sooner drunk with morning dews,
The bees with flow'ry shrubs, the goats with browse."
Unmov'd, and with dejected eyes, he mourn'd:
He paus'd, and then these broken words return'd:
''Tis past; and pity gives me no relief :

But you, Arcadian swains, shall sing my grief,
And on your hills my last complaints renew:
So sad a song is only worthy you.

How light would lie the turf upon my breast,
If you my suff'rings in your songs exprest!
Ah! that your birth and bus'ness had been mine-
To pen the sheep, and press the swelling vine !
Had Phyllis or Amyntas caus'd my pain,
Or any nymph or shepherd on the plain,
(Tho' Phyllis brown, tho' black Amyntas were,
Are violets not sweet, because not fair ?)
Beneath the sallows and the shady vine,

My loves had mix'd their pliant limbs with mine :
Phyllis with myrtle wreaths had crown'd my hair,
And soft Amyntas sung away my care.
Come, see what pleasures in our plains abound;
The woods, the fountains, and the flow'ry ground.
As you are beauteous, were you half so true,

Here could I live, and love, and die, with only you.
Now I to fighting fields am sent afar,

And strive in winter camps with toils of war;

While you, (alas, that I should find it so !)

To shun my sight your native soil forego,

And climb the frozen Alps, and tread th' eternal snow. Ye frosts and snows, her tender body spare !

Those are not limbs for icicles to tear.

For me, the wilds and deserts are my choice;

The Muses once my care, my once harmonious voice.
There will I sing, forsaken and alone:

The rocks and hollow caves shall echo to my moan.
The rind of ev'ry plant her name shall know;
And, as the rind extends, the love shall grow.
Then on Arcadian mountains will I chase

(Mix'd with the woodland nymphs) the savage race;

Nor cold shall hinder me, with horns and hounds

To tread the thickets, or to leap the mounds.

And now methinks o'er steepy rocks I go,

And rush through sounding woods, and bend the Parthian

bow;

As if with sports my suff'rings I should ease,

Or by my pains the god of love appease.

My frenzy changes: I delight no more

On mountain tops to chase the tusky boar :

No game but hopeless love my thoughts pursue :

Once more, ye nymphs, and songs, and sounding woods,

adieu !

Love alters not for us his hard decrees,

Not though beneath the Thracian clime we freeze,

Or Italy's indulgent heav'n forego,

And in mid-winter tread Sithonian snow;

Or, when the barks of elms are scorched, we keep
On Meroe's burning plains the Libyan sheep.
In hell, and earth, and seas, and heav'n above,
Love conquers all; and we must yield to love."
My Muses, here your sacred raptures end :
The verse was what I ow'd my suff'ring friend.
This while I sung, my sorrows I deceiv'd,
And bending osiers into baskets weav'd.
The song, because inspir'd by you, shall shine;
And Gallus will approve, because 'tis mine-
Gallus, for whom my holy flames renew
Each hour, and ev'ry moment rise in view;
As alders, in the spring, their boles extend,
And heave so fiercely that the bark they rend,
Now let us rise: for hoarseness oft invades
The singer's voice, who sings beneath the shades.
From juniper unwholesome dews distil,

That blast the sooty corn, the withering herbage kill.
Away, my goats, away! for you have brows'd your fill.

GEORGIC I.

ARGUMENT.

The poet, in the beginning of this book, propounds the general design of each Georgic: and, after a solemn invocation of all the gods who are any way related to his subject, he addresses himself in particular to Augustus, whom he compliments with divinity; and after strikes into his business. He shows the different kinds of tillage proper to different soils, traces out the original of agriculture, gives a catalogue of the husbandman's tools, specifies the employments peculiar to each season, describes the changes of the weather, with the signs in heaven and earth that forebode them; instances many of the prodigies that happened near the scene of Julius Cæsar's death; and shuts up all with a supplication to the gods for the safety of Augustus, and the preservation of Rome.

WHA

7HAT makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn
The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn;

The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine ;

And how to raise on elms the teeming vine ;
The birth and genius of the frugal bee,
I sing, Mæcenas, and I sing to thee.

Ye deities! who fields and plains protect,
Who rule the seasons, and the year direct,
Bacchus and fost'ring Ceres, pow'rs divine,
Who gave us corn for mast, for water, wine-
Ye Fauns, propitious to the rural swains,

Ye Nymphs that haunt the mountains and the plains,
Join in my work, and to my numbers bring
Your needful succor; for your gifts I sing.

And thou, whose trident struck the teeming earth,
And made a passage for the courser's birth;
And thou, for whom the Cean shore sustains
The milky herds, that graze the flow'ry plains;
And thou, the shepherds' tutelary god,
Leave, for a while, O Pan. thy lov'd abode ;
And, if Arcadian fleeces be thy care,

From fields and mountains to my song repair.
Inventor, Pallas, of the fatt'ning oil,

Thou founder of the plough and ploughman's toil;

And thou, whose hands the shroud-like cypress rear, Come, all ye gods and goddesses, that wear

The rural honors, and increase the year;

You, who supply the ground with seeds of grain;
And you, who swell those seeds with kindly rain;
And chiefly thou, whose undetermin'd state
Is yet the bus'ness of the gods, debate,
Whether in after-times, to be declar'd,

The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard,
Or o'er the fruits and seasons to preside,
And the round circuit of the year to guide-
Pow'rful of blessings, which thou strew'st around,
And with thy goddess mother's myrtle crown'd.
Or wilt thou, Cæsar, choose the wat'ry reign
To smooth the surges, and correct the main ?
Then mariners, in storms, to thee shall pray;
E'en utmost Thule shall thy pow'r obey;
And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.
The wat'ry virgins for thy bed shall strive,
And Tethys all her waves in dowry give.
Or wilt thou bless our summers with thy rays,
And, seated near the Balance, poise the days,
Where, in the void of heav'n, a space is free,
Betwixt the Scorpion and the Maid, for thee?
The Scorpion, ready to receive thy laws,
Yields half his region, and contracts his claws.
Whatever part of heaven thou shalt obtain,
(For let not hell presume of such a reign;
Nor let so dire a thirst of empire move
Thy mind, to leave thy kindred gods above;
Though Greece admires Elysium's blest retreat,
Though Proserpine affects her silent seat,
And, importun'd by Ceres to remove,
Prefers the fields below to those above,)
Be thou propitious, Cæsar! guide my course,
And to my bold endeavors add thy force:
Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares;
Int'rest thy greatness in our mean affairs,

And use thyself betimes to hear and grant our prayers.
While yet the spring is young, while earth unbinds

Her frozen bosom to the western winds;

While mountain snows dissolve against the sun,
And streams, yet new, from precipices run;
E'en in this early dawning of the year,

Produce the plough, and yoke the sturdy steer,
And goad him till he groans beneath his toil,
Till the bright share is buried in the soil.