So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O could I flow like thee! and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full;
Heav'n her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser current, 's lost:
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars,* and bathe the gods.
Here Nature, whether more intent to please
Us for herself with strange varieties,

(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise maker's than beholder's sight;
Tho' these delights from sev'ral causes move,
For so our children, thus our friends, we love;)
Wisely she knew, the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord-springs:
Such was the discord which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty, thro' the universe:
While dryness moisture, coldness heat resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists;
While the steep horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood.

The Forest.

Such huge extremes when Nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.
The stream is so transparent, pure and clear,
That had the self-enamour'd* youth gaz'd here,
So fatally deceiv'd he had not been,

While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat;
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is plac'd,
Between the mountain and the stream embrac❜d,
Which shade and shelter from the Hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.

This scene had some bold Greek or British bard
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard

Of Fairies, Satyrs, and the Nymphs their dames, Their feasts, their revels, and their am'rous flames! 'Tis still the same, altho' their airy shape

All but a quick poetic sight escape.

* Narcissus.

There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts

To graze the ranker mead; that noble herd
On whose sublime and shady fronts is rear'd
Nature's great master-piece, to show how soon
Great things are made, but sooner are undone.
Here have I seen the king, when great affairs
Gave leave to slacken and unbend his cares,
Attended to the chase by all the flow'r

Of youth, whose hopes a nobler prey devour;
Pleasure with praise and danger they would buy,
And wish a foe that would not only fly.
The stag now conscious of his fatal growth,
At once indulgent to his fear and sloth,

To some dark covert his retreat had made,
Where nor man's eye, nor heaven's, should invade
His soft repose; when th' unexpected sound
Of dogs and men his wakeful ear does wound.
Rouz'd with the noise, he scarce believes his ear,
Willing to think th' illusions of his fear

Had giv'n this false alarm, but straight his view
Confirms that more than all he fears is true.
Betray'd in all his strengths, the wood beset,
All instruments, all arts of ruin met,

He calls to mind his strength, and then his speed,
His winged heels, and then his armed head;

With these t' avoid, with that his fate to meet,
But fear prevails, and bids him trust his feet.
So fast he flies, that his reviewing eye

Has lost the chasers, and his ear the cry;
Exulting, till he finds their nobler sense
Their disproportion'd speed doth recompence;
Then curses his conspiring feet, whose scent
Betrays that safety which his swiftness lent:
Then tries his friends; among the baser herd,
Where he so lately was obey'd and fear'd,
His safety seeks: the herd, unkindly wise,
Or chases him from thence, or from him flies.
Like a declining statesman, left forlorn
To his friends' pity, and pursuers' scorn,
With shame remembers while himself was one
Of the same herd, himself the same had done.
Thence to the coverts and the conscious groves,
The scenes of his past triumphs and his loves,
Sadly surveying where he rang'd alone,

Prince of the soil, and all the herd his own,
And like a bold knight-errant did proclaim
Combat to all, and bore away the dame,
And taught the woods to echo to the stream
His dreadful challenge and his clashing beam;
Yet faintly now declines the fatal strife,
So much his love was dearer than his life.

Now ev'ry leaf, and ev'ry moving breath
Presents a foe, and ev'ry foe a death.
Weary'd, forsaken, and pursu'd, at last
All safety in despair of safety plac'd,
Courage he thence resumes, resolv'd to bear
All their assaults, since 'tis in vain to fear.
And now, too late, he wishes for the fight
That strength he wasted in ignoble flight:
But when he sees the eager chase renew'd,
Himself by dogs, the dogs by men pursu❜d,
He straight revokes his bold resolve, and more
Repents his courage than his fear before;
Finds that uncertain ways unsafest are,

And doubt a greater mischief than despair.

Then to the stream, when neither friends, nor force,

Nor speed, nor art, avail, he shapes his course;
Thinks not their rage so desp'rate to essay
An element more merciless than they.
But fearless they pursue, nor can the flood
Quench their dire thirst: alas! they thirst for blood,
So t'wards a ship the oar-finn'd galleys ply,
Which wanting sea to ride, or wind to fly,
Stands but to fall reveng'd on those that dare
Tempt the last fury of extreme despair.
So fares the stag; among th' enraged hounds
Repels their force, and wounds returns for wounds: