For (, since I will acknowledge it,) while me
Did Galatea thrall, nor hope there was
Of freedom, nor for perquisite concern.
Though many a victim issued from my folds,
And for the thankless city fatty cheese
Was pressed, ne'er, laden with the coin for me,
Unto my home my right hand would return.

MELIBUS.

I used to marvel why, in mournful mood,
Thou, Amaryllis, wouldst the gods invoke;
For whom thou wouldst allow the fruits to hang
Upon their native tree: [thy] Tityrus

Was hence away. The very pines on thee,
O Tityrus, on thee the very springs,

These very copses, called.

I neither from my bondage could escape,

Nor elsewhere come to know such kindly gods.

Here I that youth, O Melibus, saw,

To whom, yearly, twice six days our altars smoke;
Here th' answer did he first to me vouchsafe,

"Mary then, and gentle Anne,
Both to reign at once began;

Alternately they sway'd;

And sometimes Mary was the fair,

And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,

And sometimes both I obeyed."

Line 52. The cause of Tityrus coming home with empty purse was the same that enriched Autolycus, at the Clown's expense, in Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, iv. 3:

"If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribands and gloves."

His suppliant: "Feed ye, as hitherto,
Your oxen, O my swains; break in

MELIBUS.

your bulls.”

O blest old man, then thine thy fields shall bide!
Aye large enough for thee, though naked stone,
And marish with its oozy rush o'erspread
The pastures all. No unaccustomed food
Shall harm thy sickly females that have yeaned,
Nor scathful contact with a neighbouring flock
Endamage them. O blest old man, you here,
Amid familiar streams and hallowed springs,
Shalt shady cool enjoy. On hither side,
The hedge, which at the neighbouring boundary
its willow-blossom made a feast
By the Hyblæan bees, shall oftentimes
Woo thee by gentle hum to drop asleep :
On th' other side, beneath the towering rock,
The vine-dresser shall carol to the gales;
Nor yet meanwhile hoarse culvers, thy delight,
Nor turtle cease from skyish elm to moan.

Has

aye

TITYRUS.

Sooner, then, nimble harts shall feed in air,

70

80

Line 79.

"There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound
Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites

To studious musing."

Milton's P. R. b. iv.

84. Shakspeare uses the powerful aid of impossibilities for a dif ferent purpose: Merchant of Venice, iv. 1:

"You may as well go stand upon the beach,
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise,
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven,
As seek to soften that, his Jewish heart."

90

And friths leave fishes bare upon the beach;

Sooner, both countries' frontiers traversed o'er,
Either the Parthian exile th' Araris

Shall quaff, or Germany the Tigris, than

His features from my

breast may fade away.

MELIBUS.

But we, some hence to Afric's thirsty sons

And again, in Coriolanus, v. 3:

"Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
Fillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds
Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun,
Murdering impossibility, to make
What cannot be, slight work."

Line 90. Goldsmith feelingly alludes to the miseries of exile:
"Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling, long-frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?"

Again, in the Deserted Village:

Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore:

Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,

And fiercely shed intolerable day;

Those matted woods, where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;

Traveller.

Those poisonous fields, with rank luxuriance crown'd,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling horrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murderous than they;

Shall journey, others shall to Scythia come,
And the Oaxis, sweeping [flood] of Crete,

And to the Britons, severed clean from all the world.
Lo! shall I ever, in a long time hence,
My native bourns, and humble cabin's roof
Uppiled with turf, some scanty ears of corn,
My realm, hereafter marvel as I see?
Shall these my lands, in such a state of tilth,

While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,—
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,

That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love."

Line 94. So Ambrose Philips, with a pleasing variety: Past. 2: "Sweet are thy banks! Oh, when shall I once more

With ravish'd eyes review thine amell'd shore?

When in the crystal of thy waters scan

Each feature faded, and my colour wan?

When shall I see my hut, the small abode

Myself did raise, and cover o'er with sod?
Small though it be, a mean and humble cell,

Yet is there room for peace and me to dwell."

98. A similar calamity befalls the Circassian shepherds in the 4th Eclogue of Collins. Agib thus pathetically addresses Sicander: "Still as I haste, the Tartar shouts behind,

And shrieks and sorrows load the saddening wind :
In rage of heart, with ruin in his hand,

He blasts our harvests, and deforms our land.

Yon citron-grove, whence first in fear we came,
Droops its fair honours to the conquering flame;
Far fly the swains, like us, in deep despair,
And leave to saffron bands their fleecy care."

"Fair scenes! but, ah! no more with peace possess'd,
With ease alluring, and with plenty bless'd!
No more the shepherds' whitening tents appear,
Nor the kind products of a bounteous year;

No more the date, with snowy blossoms crown'd;
But ruin spreads her baleful fires around."

A godless soldier hold? A foreigner these crops
Of standing corn? Lo! unto what a pass
Disunion us unhappy citizens

Hath brought! See for whom we have sown the fields!
O Melibœus, thy pear-trees;

Graft now,
Set out thy vines a-row.

Once happy flock, away!

Away, my goats,

I you ne'er more,

Stretched at my length within the verdant grot,
Far hanging from the braky cliff, shall view;
No ditties shall I sing: no [more], my goats,
Your caterer I, the blooming cytisus
And bitter sprays of willow shall you browse.

TITYRUS.

Still here with me thou mightest have reposed
This night upon the emerald foliage.

We have mild fruits, soft chestnuts, and a store

Of curded milk; and in the distance now

The roof-tops of the country-houses smoke,

And larger from the high mountains sink the shades.

Line 111. So Spenser's Shepheard's Calender, September, 254: "But if to my cotage thou wilt resort,

So as I can I will thee comfort;

There mayst thou ligge in a vetchy bed,

Till fairer Fortune shew forth his head."

100

110

113. The young student may be referred to Ec. ix. 50, where he will see that poma is used of pears.

116. Milton treats the idea in the closing line differently:

"And now the sun had stretched out all the hills."

Collins, with a further variety: Ec. iii.:

"While evening dews enrich the glittering glade,

And the tall forests cast a longer shade."

Lycidas.

Dryden applies the idea figuratively to the declining age of David,

king of Israel:

"Behold him setting in the western skies,

The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise."

Absalom and Achitophel, 268, 9.