LANQUET. To Geron I my voice and fkill commend: Unbiafs'd, he to both is equal friend. GERON. Begin then, boys, and vary well your fong; HOBBINOL. The fnows are melted, and the kindly rain Defcends on ev'ry herb, and ev'ry grain; Soft balmy breezes breathe along the sky: The bloomy feason of the year is nigh. LANQUET. The cuckoo tells aloud her painful love; HOBBINOL. When locufts in the fearny bushes cry, When ravens pant, and snakes in caverns lie; LANQUET. When greens to yellow vary, and you fee HOBBINOL. Full fain, O bleft Eliza! would I praise LANQUET. Thrice happy fhepherds now! for Dorfet loves HOBBINOL. I love in fecret all a beauteous maid, LANQUET. Mild as the lamb, and harmless as the dove, True as the turtle, is the maid I love. HOBBINOL. Soft, on a cowflip bank, my love and I Together lay: a brook ran murm'ring by. A thousand tender things to me she said, And I a thousand tender things repaid. LANQUET. In fummer fhade, beneath the cocking hay, What foft, endearing words did she not fay! Her lap, with apron deck'd, she kindly spread, And strok'd my cheeks, and lull'd my leaning head. HOBBINOL. HOBBINOL. Breathe foft, ye winds; ye waters, gently flow; My love in yonder vale afleep does lie. LANQUET. Once Delia flept, on eafy mofs reclin'd, HOBBINOL. As Marian bath'd, by chance I paffed by; LANQUET. As I, to cool me, bath'd one fultry day, HOBBINOL. When first I saw, would I had never seen! Poor, heedlefs wretch, at unawares I lov❜d. LANQUET. When Lucy decks with flow'rs her fwelling breaft, Nor sheep nor pasture worth my care I find. HOBBINOL. Come, Rofalind, O come! for, without thee, What pleasure can the country have for me? Come, Rofalind, O come! my brinded kine, My fnowy sheep, my farm, and all is thine. LANQUET. Come, Rofalind, O come! here fhady bow'rs, Here are cool fountains, and here springing flow'cs. Come, Rofalind: here ever let us stay, And fweetly wafte our live-long time away. HOBBINOL. In vain the feasons of the moon I know, The force of healing herbs, and where they grow; There is no herb, no feason, may remove From my fond heart the racking pains of love. LANQUET. What profits me, that I in charms have skill, Yet have, with all my charms, no pow'r to lay HOBBINOL. O that like Colin I had skill in rhymes, To purchase credit with fucceeding times! Sweet Colin Clout! who never yet had peer, Who fung thro' all the feasons of the LANQUET. year. Let me like Wrenock fing: his voice had pow'r To free the 'clipfing moon at midnight hour: And, as he fung, the fairies, with their queen, In mantles blue came tripping o'er the green. GERON GERON. Here end your pleasing ftrife. Both victors are; PHILIPS. SE C T. CIX. ON THE DIFFICULTIES WHICH MEN OF GENIUS HAVE TO STRUGGLE WITH. A I. H! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar! Ah! who can tell how many a foul fublime Has felt the influence of malignant star, Check'd by the fcoff of Pride, by Envy's frown, In life's low vale remote has pined alone, Then dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown! And yet the languor of inglorious days Not equally oppreffive is to all. Him, who ne'er liften'd to the voice of Praise, The filence of Neglect can ne'er appal. |