New milk,and clouted cream,mild cheese and curd,
With some remaining fruit of last year's hoard,
Shall be our evening fare; and for the night,
Sweet herbs and moss, which gentle sleep invite:
And now behold the sun's departing ray,
O'er yonder hill, the sign of ebbing day:
With songs the jovial hinds return from plough;
And unyoked heifers, loitering homeward, low.
WHEN Virgil thought no shame the Doric reed
To tune, and flocks on Mantuan plains to feed,
With young Augustus' name he graced his song;
And Spenser, when amid the rural throng
He caroll'd sweet, and grazed along the flood
Of gentle Thames, made every sounding wood
With good Eliza's name to ring around;
Eliza's name on every tree was found:
Since, then, through Anna's cares at ease we live,
And see our cattle unmolested thrive,
While from our Albion her victorious arms
Drive wasteful warfare, loud in dire alarms;
Like them will I my slender music raise,
And teach the vocal valleys Anna's praise.
Meantime, on oaten pipe a lowly lay,
As my kids browse, obscure in shades I play:
Yet, not obscure, while Dorset thinks no scorn
To visit woods, and swains ignobly born.
Two valley swains, both musical, both young, In friendship mutual, and united long,
Retire within a mossy cave, to shun
The crowd of shepherds, and the noonday sun. A gloom of sadness overcasts their mind: Revolving now, the solemn day they find, When young Albino died. His image dear Bedews their cheeks with many a trickling tear: To tears they add the tribute of their verse; These Angelot, those Palin, did rehearse.
Thus, yearly circling, by-pass'd times return;
And yearly, thus, Albino's death we mourn.
Sent into life, alas! how short thy stay:
How sweet the rose! how speedy to decay!
Can we forget, Albino dear, thy knell,
Sad sounding wide from every village bell?
Can we forget how sorely Albion moan'd,
That hills, and dales, and rocks, in echo groan'd,
Presaging future woe, when, for our crimes,
We lost Albino, pledge of peaceful times,
Fair boast of this fair island, darling joy
Of nobles high, and every shepherd boy?
No joyous pipe was heard, no flocks were seen,
Nor shepherd found upon the grassy green;
No cattle grazed the field, nor drank the flood,
No birds were heard to warble through the wood.
In yonder gloomy grove outstretch'd he lay
His lovely limbs upon the dampy clay;
On his cold cheek the rosy hue decay'd,
And o'er his lips the deadly blue display'd:
Bleating around him lie his plaintive sheep,
And mourning shepherds come, in crowds, to weep.
Young Buckhurst comes: and, is there no redress?
As if the grave regarded our distress!
The tender virgins come, to tears yet new,
And give aloud, the lamentations due.
The pious mother comes, with grief oppress'd;
Ye trees, and conscious fountains, can attest
With what sad accents, and what piercing cries,
She fill'd the grove, and importuned the skies,
And every star upbraided with his death,
When, in her widow'd arms, devoid of breath,
She clasp'd her son: nor did the nymph, for this,
Place in her darling's welfare all her bliss,
Him teaching, young, the harmless crook to wield,
And rule the peaceful empire of the field.
As milk-white swans on streams of silver show,
And silvery streams to grace the meadows flow,
As corn the vales, and trees the hills adorn,
So thou, to thine, an ornament wast born.
Since thou, delicious youth, didst quit the plains,
The' ungrateful ground we till with fruitless pains,
In labour'd furrows sow the choice of wheat,
And, over empty sheaves, in harvest sweat;
A thin increase our fleecy cattle yield;
And thorns, and thistles, overspread the field.
How all our hope is fled like morning dew!
And scarce did we thy dawn of manhood view.
Who now should teach the pointed spear to throw,
To whirl the sling, and bend the stubborn bow,
To toss the quoit with steady aim, and far,
With sinewy force, to pitch the massy bar?
Nor dost thou live to bless thy mother's days,
To share her triumphs, and to feel her praise,
In foreign realms to purchase early fame,
And add new glories to the British name:
O, peaceful may thy gentle spirit rest!
The flowery turf lie light upon thy breast;
Nor skrieking owl, nor bat, thy tomb fly round, Nor midnight goblins revel o'er the ground.
No more, mistaken Angelot, complain :
Albino lives; and all our tears are vain:
Albino lives, and will for ever live,
With myriads mix'd, who never know to grieve;
Who welcome every stranger-guest, nor fear
Ever to mourn his absence with a tear,
Where cold, nor heat, nor irksome toil
annoy,
Nor age, nor sickness, comes to damp their joy:
And now the royal nymph, who bore him, deigns
The land to rule, and shield the simple swains,
While, from above, propitious he looks down:
For this, the welkin does no longer frown;
Each planet shines, indulgent, from his sphere;
And we renew our pastimes with the year.
Hills,dales,and woods, with shrilling pipes resound:
The boys and virgins dance, with chaplets crown'd,
And hail Albino bless'd: the valleys ring
Albino bless'd! O now, if ever, bring
The laurel green, the smelling eglantine,
And tender branches from the mantling vine,
The dewy cowslip, which in meadow grows,
The fountain-violet, and the garden rose,
Marsh lilies sweet, and tufts of daffodil,
With what ye cull from wood, or verdant hill,
Whether in open sun or shade they blow,
More early some, and some unfolding slow;
Bring, in heap'd canisters, of every kind,
As if the summer had with spring combined,
And nature, forward to assist your care,
Did not profusion for Albino spare.
Your hamlets strew, and every public way;
And consecrate to mirth Albino's day;
Myself will lavish all my little store,
And deal about the goblet flowing o'er:
Old Moulin there shall harp, young Myco sing,
And Cuddy dance the round amid the ring,
And Hobbinol his antic gambols play:
To thee these honours, yearly, will we pay:
Nor fail to mention thee in all our cheer,
And teach our children the remembrance dear,
When we our shearing-feast or harvest keep,
To speed the plough, and bless our thriving sheep.
While willow kids, and herbage lambs pursue,
While bees love thyme, and locusts sip the dew,
While birds delight in woods their notes to strain,
Thy name and sweet memorial shall remain.
THIS place may seem for shepherds' leisure made, So close these elms inweave their lofty shade; The twining woodbine, how it climbs; to breathe Refreshing sweets around on all beneath;
The ground with grass of cheerful green bespread, Through which the springing flower uprears the head:
Lo, here the kingcup of a golden hue,
Medlied with daisies white and endive blue,
And honeysuckles of a purple dye,
Confusion gay! bright waving to the eye,
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