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Apollo check'd my pride: and bade me feed
My fattening flocks, nor dare beyond the reed.
Admonish'd thus, while every pen prepares
To write thy praises, Varus, and thy wars,
My Paftoral Muse her humble tribute brings;
And yet not wholly uninfpir'd fhe fings.
For all who read, and, reading, not disdain
These rural poems, and their lowly ftrain,
The name of Varus, oft infcrib'd shall fee,
In every grove, and every vocal tree;
And all the fylvan reign fhall fing of thee.
Thy name, to Phœbus and the Muses known,
Shall in the front of every page be shown;
For he who fings thy praife, fecures his own.
Proceed, my Mufe: Two Satyrs, on the ground,
Stretch'd at his ease, their fire Silenus found.
Dos'd with his fumes, and heavy with his load,
They found him snoring in his dark abode;
And feiz'd with youthful arms the drunken god.
His rofy wreath was dropt not long before,
Borne by the tide of wine, and floating on the floor. 25
His empty cann, with ears half worn away,
Was hung on high, to boaft the triumph of the day.
Invaded thus, for want of better bands,

His garland they unftring, and bind his hands:
For, by the fraudful god deluded long,
They now refolve to have their promis'd fong.
Ægle came in, to make their party good;
The fairest Naïs of the neighbouring flood,

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And, while he ftares around, with ftupid eyes,
His brows with berries, and his temples dyes.
He finds the fraud, and, with a smile, demands
On what defign the boys had bound his hands.
"Loose me," he cry'd, " 'twas impudence to find
"A fleeping god, 'tis facrilege to bind.

"To you the promis'd poem I will pay;
"The nymph fhall be rewarded in her way.”
He rais'd his voice; and foon à numerous throng
Of tripping Satyrs crowded to the fong;
And fylvan Fauns, and favage beasts advanced,
And nodding forefts to the numbers danced.
Not by Hæmonian hills the Thracian bard,
Nor awful Phoebus was on Pindus heard,
With deeper filence, or with more regard.
He fung the fecret feeds of Nature's frame;
How feas, and earth, and air, and active flame,
Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall
Were blindly gather'd in this goodly ball.
The tender foil then ftiffening by degrees,
Shut from the bounded earth, the bounding feas.
Then earth and ocean various forms disclose;
And a new fun to the new world arofe.
And mifts condens'd to clouds obfcure the sky;
And clouds diffolv❜d, the thirsty ground supply.
The rifing trees the lofty mountains grace:
The lofty mountains feed the favage race,
Yet few, and strangers, in th' unpeopled place.
From thence the birth of man the fong pursued,
And how the world was loft, and how renew'd.

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The

The reign of Saturn, and the golden age;
Prometheus' theft, and Jove's avenging rage.
The cries of Argonauts for Hylas drown'd;
With whose repeated name the shores refound.
Then mourns the madness of the Cretan queen:
Happy for her if herds had never been.
What fury, wretched woman, feiz'd thy breaft?
The maids of Argos (though, with rage poffefs'd,
Their imitated lowings fill'd the grove)
Yet fhunn'd the guilt of thy prepofterous love.
Nor fought the youthful husband of the herd,
Though labouring yokes on their own necks they
fear'd;

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And felt for budding horns on their smooth foreheads rear'd.

Ah, wretched queen! you range the pathlefs wood;
While on a flowery bank he chews the cud:
Or fleeps in fhades, or through the foreft roves;
And roars with anguish for his absent loves.
Ye nymphs, with toils his foreft-walk furround,
And trace his wandering footfteps on the ground.
But ah! perhaps my paffion he difdains,
And courts the milky mothers of the plains.
We fearch th' ungrateful fugitive abroad;
While they at home fuftain his happy load.
He fung the lover's fraud; the longing maid,
With golden fruit, like all the fex, betray'd:

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The fifter's mourning for the brother's lofs;
Their bodies hid in barks, and furr'd with mofs. go

How

How each a rifing alder now appears:

And o'er the Po diftils her

gummy tears.

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Then fung, how Gallus by a Mufe's hand Was led and welcom'd to the facred ftrand. The fenate, rifing to falute their gueft; And Linus thus their gratitude express'd, Receive this prefent, by the Mufes made; The pipe on which th' Afcræan paftor play'd; With which of old he charm'd the favage train, And call'd the mountain ashes to the plain. Sing thou on this, thy Phœbus; and the wood Where once his fane of Parian marble stood. On this his ancient oracles rehearse, And with new numbers grace the God of verse. Why should I fing the double Scylla's fate, The first by love transform'd, the last by hate. A beauteous maid above, but magic arts With barking dogs deform'd her nether parts: What vengeance on the paffing fleet fhe pour'd, The mafter frighted, and the mates devour'd. Then ravish'd Philomel the fong exprest; The crime reveal'd; the fifters cruel feast: And how in fields the lapwing Tereus reigns; The warbling nightingale in woods complains. While Progne makes on chimney-tops her moan; 115 And hovers o'er the palace once her own. Whatever fongs befides, the Delphian God Had taught the laurels, and the Spartan flood, Silenus fung: the vales his voice rebound, And carrry to the skies the facred found, E 3

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And

And now the setting fun had warn'd the swain
To call his counted cattle from the plain:

Yet ftill th' unweary'd fire pursues the tuneful ftrain.
Till unperceiv'd the heavens with stars were hung:
And fudden night furpriz'd the yet unfinish'd song,

THE