| |
To Lord Halifax
WHILE you, my Lord, the rural shades admire, | |
| And from Britannia’s public posts retire, | |
| Nor longer, her ungrateful sons to please, | |
| For their advantage sacrifice your ease, | |
| Me into foreign realms my fate conveys, | 5 |
| Through nations fruitful of immortal lays, | |
| Where the soft season and inviting clime | |
| Conspire to trouble your repose with rhyme. | |
| For wheresoe’er I turn my ravished eyes, | |
| Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, | 10 |
| Poetic fields encompass me around, | |
| And still I seem to tread on classic ground; | |
| For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung, | |
| That not a mountain rears its head unsung, | |
| Renowned in verse each shady thicket grows, | 15 |
| And every stream in heavenly numbers flows. | |
| How am I pleased to search the hills and woods | |
| For rising springs and celebrated floods! | |
| To view the Nar, tumultuous in his course, | |
| And trace the smooth Clitumnus to his source, | 20 |
| To see the Mincio draw his watery store | |
| Through the long windings of a fruitful shore, | |
| And hoary Albula’s infected tide | |
| O’er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide. | |
| Fired with a thousand raptures, I survey | 25 |
| Eridamus through flowery meadows stray, | |
| The king of floods! that, rolling o’er the plains, | |
| The towering Alps of half their moisture drains, | |
| And, proudly swoln with a whole winter’s snows, | |
| Distributes wealth and plenty where he flows. | 30 |
| Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng, | |
| I look for streams immortalized in song, | |
| That lost in silence and oblivion lie, | |
| (Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry), | |
| Yet run forever by the Muse’s skill, | 35 |
| And in the smooth description murmur still. | |
| Sometimes to gentle Tiber I retire, | |
| And the famed river’s empty shores admire, | |
| That destitute of strength derives its course | |
| From thrifty urns and an unfruitful source; | 40 |
| Yet sung so often in poetic lays, | |
| With scorn the Danube and the Nile surveys. * * * * * | |
| See how the golden groves around me smile, | |
| That shun the coast of Britain’s stormy isle, | |
| Or when transplanted and preserved with care, | 45 |
| Curse the cold clime, and starve in northern air. | |
| Here kindly warmth their mounting juice ferments | |
| To nobler tastes and more exalted scents: | |
| Even the rough rocks with tender myrtle bloom, | |
| And trodden weeds send out a rich perfume. | 50 |
| Bear me, some god, to Baia’s gentle seats, | |
| Or cover me in Umbria’s green retreats; | |
| Where western gales eternally reside, | |
| And all the seasons lavish all their pride: | |
| Blossoms and fruits and flowers together rise, | 55 |
| And the whole year in gay confusion lies. | |
| |
