Pastorals Epistles Odes (1748)/Sixth Pastoral

by Ambrose Philips

For other versions of this work, see Sixth Pastoral (Philips).

 

THE

SIXTH PASTORAL.

 

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GERON, HOBBINOL, LANQUET.

GERON.
OW still the sea behold! how calm the sky!
And how, in sportive chase, the swallows fly!
My goats, secure from harm, small tendance need,
While high, on yonder hanging rock, they feed; 4
And, here below, the banky shore along,
Your heifers graze. Now, then, to strive in song
Prepare. As eldest, Hobbinol begin;
And Lanquet's rival-verse, by turns, come in. 8

HOBBINOL.
 Let others stake what chosen pledge they will,
Or kid, or lamb, or mazer wrought with skill:
For praise we sing, nor wager ought beside;
And, whose the praise, let Geron's lips decide. 12

LANQUET.
 To Geron I my voice, and skill, commend,
A candid umpire, and to both a friend.

GERON.
 Begin then, boys; and vary well your song:
Begin; nor fear, from Geron's sentence, wrong. 16
A boxen hautboy, loud, and sweet of sound,
All varnish'd, and with brazen ringlets bound,
I to the victor give: no mean reward,
If to the ruder village pipes compar'd. 20

HOBBINOL.
 The snows are melted; and the kindly rain
Descends on every herb, and every grain:
Soft balmy breezes breathe along the sky;
The bloomy season of the year is nigh. 24

LANQUET.
 The cuckoo calls aloud his wandering love;
The turtle's moan is hear'd in every grove;
The pastures change; the warbling linnets sing:
Prepare to welcome in the gaudy spring. 28

HOBBINOL.
When locusts, in the ferny bushes, cry,
When ravens pant, and snakes in caverns ly,
Graze then in woods, and quit the shadeless plain,
Else shall ye press the spongy teat in vain. 32

LANQUET.
 When greens to yellow vary, and ye see
The ground bestrew'd with fruits off every tree,
And stormy winds are hear'd, think winter near,
Nor trust too far to the declining year. 36

HOBBINOL.
 Woe then, alack! befall the spendthrift swain,
When frost, and snow, and hail, and sleet, and rain,
By turns chastise him, while, through little care,
His sheep, unshelter'd, pine in nipping air. 40

LANQUET.
 The lad of forecast then untroubled sees
The white bleak plains, and silvery frosted trees:
He sends his flock, and, clad in homely frize,
In his warm cott the wintery blast defies. 44

HOBBINOL.
 Full fain, O bless'd Eliza! would I praise
Thy maiden rule, and Albion's golden days:
Then gentle Sidney liv'd, the shepherd's friend:
Eternal blessings on his shade attend! 48

LANQUET.
 Thrice happy shepherds now! for Dorset loves
The country-muse, and our resounding groves,
While Anna reigns: O, ever, may she reign!
And bring, on earth, the golden age again. 52

HOBBINOL.
 I love, in secret all, a beauteous maid,
And have my love, in secret all, repaid;
This coming night she plights her troth to me:
Divine her name, and thou the victor be. 56

LANQUET.
 Mild as the lamb, unharmful as the dove,
True as the turtle, is the maid I love:
How we in secret love, I shall not say:
Divine her name, and I give up the day. 60

HOBBINOL.
 Soft on a cowslip bank my love and I
Together lay; a brook ran murmuring by:
A thousand tender things to me she said;
And I a thousand tender things repaid. 64

LANQUET.
 In summer-shade, behind the cocking hay,
What kind endearing words did she not say!
Her lap, with apron deck'd, she fondly spread,
And strok'd my cheek, and lull'd my leaning head. 68

HOBBINOL.
 Breathe soft ye winds; ye waters gently flow;
Shield her ye trees; ye flowers around her grow:
Ye swains, I beg ye, pass in silence by;
My love, in yonder vale, asleep does ly. 72

LANQUET.
 Once Delia slept on easy moss reclin'd,
Her lovely limbs half bare, and rude the wind:
I smooth'd her coats, and stole a silent kiss:
Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss. 76

HOBBINOL.
 As Marian bathed, by chance I passed by;
She blush'd, and at me glanc'd a sidelong eye:
Then, cowering in the treacherous stream, she try'd
Her tempting form, yet still in vain, to hide. 80

LANQUET.
 As I, to cool me, bathed one sultry day,
Fond Lydia, lurking, in the sedges lay:
The wanton laugh'd, and seem'd in haste to fly,
Yet oft' she stopp'd, and oft' she turn'd her eye. 84

HOBBINOL.
 When first I saw, would I had never seen,
Young Lyset lead the dance on yonder green,
Intent upon her beauties, as she mov'd,
Poor heedless wretch! at unawares I lov'd. 88

LANQUET.
 When Lucy decks with flowers her swelling breast,
And on her elbow leans, dissembling rest,
Unable to refrain my madding mind,
Nor herds, nor pasture, worth my care I find. 92

HOBBINOL.
 Come, Rosalind, O, come! for, wanting thee,
Our peopled vale a desert is to me.
Come, Rosalind, O, come! My brinded kine,
My snowy sheep, my farm, and all, are thine. 96

LANQUET.
 Come, Rosalind, O, come! Here shady bowers,
Here are cool fountains, and here springing flowers:
Come, Rosalind! Here ever let us stay,
And sweetly while the live-long time away. 100

HOBBINOL.
 In vain the seasons of the moon I know,
The force of healing herbs, and where they grow:
No herb there is, no season, to remove
From my fond heart the racking pains of love. 104

LANQUET.
 What profits me, that I in charms have skill,
And ghosts, and goblins, order as I will,
Yet have, with all my charms, no power to lay
The sprite that breaks my quiet night and day? 108

HOBBINOL.
 O that, like Colin, I had skill in rhimes,
To purchase credit with succeeding times!
Sweet Colin Clout! who never, yet, had peer;
Who sung through all the seasons of the year. 112

LANQUET.
 Let me, like Merlin, sing: his Voice had power
To free the 'clipsing moon at midnight hour:
And, as he sung, the fairies with their queen,
In mantles blue, came tripping o'er the green. 116

HOBBINOL.
 Last eve of May did I not hear them sing,
And see their dance? And I can shew the ring,
Where, hand in hand, they shift their feet so light:
The grass springs greener from their tread by night. 120

LANQUET.
 But hast thou seen their king, in rich array,
Fam'd Oberon, with damask'd robe so gay,
And gemmy crown, by moonshine sparkling far,
And azure scepter, pointed with a star? 124

GERON.
 Here end your pleasing strife. Both victors are;
And both with Colin may, in rhyme, compare.
A boxen hautboy, loud, and sweet of sound,
All varnish'd, and with brazen ringlets bound, 128
To each I give. A mizzling mist descends
Adown that steepy rock: and this way tends
Yon distant rain. Shoreward the vessels strive;
And, see, the boys their flocks to shelter drive. 132

 

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