PASTORALS.
41
"And fain would utter forth some double tone,
"When soon she falters, and can utter none:
"Again she tries, and yet again she fails;
"For still the harp's united power prevails. 108
"Then Colin play'd again, and playing sung:
"She, with the fatal love of glory stung,
"Hears all in pain: her heart begins to swell:
"In piteous notes she sighs, in notes which tell 112
"Her bitter anguish: he, still singing, plies
"His limber joints: her sorrows higher rise.
"How shall she bear a conqueror, who, before,
"No equal through the grove in musick bore? 116
"She droops, she hangs her flagging wings, the moans,
"And fetcheth from her breast melodious groans.
"Oppress'd with grief at last too great to quell,
"Down, breathless, on the guilty harp she fell. 120
"Then Colin loud lamented o'er the dead,
"And unavailing tears profusely shed,
"And broke his wicked strings, and curs'd his skill;
"And best to make attonement for the ill, 124
"If, for such ill, attonement might be made,
"He builds her tomb beneath a laurel shade,
"Then adds a verse, and sets with flowers the ground,
"And makes a fence of winding osiers round. 128
"When soon she falters, and can utter none:
"Again she tries, and yet again she fails;
"For still the harp's united power prevails. 108
"Then Colin play'd again, and playing sung:
"She, with the fatal love of glory stung,
"Hears all in pain: her heart begins to swell:
"In piteous notes she sighs, in notes which tell 112
"Her bitter anguish: he, still singing, plies
"His limber joints: her sorrows higher rise.
"How shall she bear a conqueror, who, before,
"No equal through the grove in musick bore? 116
"She droops, she hangs her flagging wings, the moans,
"And fetcheth from her breast melodious groans.
"Oppress'd with grief at last too great to quell,
"Down, breathless, on the guilty harp she fell. 120
"Then Colin loud lamented o'er the dead,
"And unavailing tears profusely shed,
"And broke his wicked strings, and curs'd his skill;
"And best to make attonement for the ill, 124
"If, for such ill, attonement might be made,
"He builds her tomb beneath a laurel shade,
"Then adds a verse, and sets with flowers the ground,
"And makes a fence of winding osiers round. 128
"A
