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VIII.

44

No ruder founds my grazing herds affright, Nor mar the milk-maid's folitary fong: The jealous halcyon wheels her humble flight, And hides her emerald wing my reeds among; All unalarm'd, fave when the genial May Bids wake my peopled fhores, and rears the ripen'd hay.

IX.

Then scorn no more this unfrequented scene; So to new notes fhall my coy Echo string 50

V. 42.

mantle dank.] "Dank," moift, wet. Milton calls

Horace's Veftimenta uvida

My dank and dropping weeds.

See also Par. Loft, ix. 179:

So faying, thro' each thicket dank or dry.

V. 45. The jealous halcyon wheels her humble flight,
And hides her emerald wing my reeds among;]

Mr. Headley refers to a paffage from Shenstone :
Hither the peaceful halcyon flies,

And bides her fapphire plumage here.

The resemblance was ftronger, when the two lines in the text flood,

The Sapphire halcyon wings her fecret flight,
And glows unfeen my reedy ranks among.

Though the word bides ftrongly marks imitation.

V. 47. the genial May] Lucret. i.

· genitalis aura Favoni.

V. 49. Then fcorn no more, &c.] Inftead of the two ftanzas which now conclude this Ode, there were originally the following, which allude to the particular occafion of it:

Her lonely harp. Hither the brow ferene, And the flow pace of Contemplation bring: Nor call in vain infpiring Ecftafy

To bid her vifions meet the frenzy-rolling eye.

X.

Whate'er the theme; if unrequited love 55 Seek, all unfeen, his bashful griefs to breathe; Or Fame to bolder flights the bofom move, Waving aloft the glorious epic wreath; Here hail the Muses: from the busy throng Remote, where Fancy dwells, and Nature prompts the fong.

Then hither hafte, ye youths, whofe duty brings

To George's memory the votive dirge;

Lo! penfive Peace fhall tune your folemn ftrings,
To faddeft airs along my lonely verge;

Here Grief with holy mufings may converse

In founds, that beft fhall greet the glorious Hero's herse.

Or if aufpicious themes your harps would own,
In airy vifions here fhall meet your eye

Fair scenes of bliss: a blooming Monarch's throne
Hung with the wreaths of righteous victory,

The decent trophies of domestic ease,

A People's filial love, and all the palms of peace.

60

V. 54. the frenzy-rolling eye.] Shakfpere, Midf. N. Dr. A&t v:

The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, &c.

ODE X.

THE FIRST OF APRIL,

(Published in 1777.)

WITH dalliance rude young Zephyr woos

Coy May. Full oft with kind excufe
The boisterous boy the Fair denies,

Or with a scornful fmile complies.

Mindful of disaster past,

And shrinking at the northern blast,
The fleety storm returning still,

The morning hoar, and evening chill;

V. 1. With dalliance rude, &c.] This opening is harsh and unpleasing.

V. 6.

fhrinking at the northern blast,

The fleety storm returning ftill,

The morning hoar, and evening chill;]

Thomson notices the prevalence of thefe circumstances in the weather throughout the month of March:

VOL. I.

As yet the trembling year is unconfirm'd,

And Winter oft at eve refumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving fleets
Deform the day delightlefs. Spring, ver. 18.

N

Reluctant comes the timid Spring.

Scarce a bee, with airy ring,

Murmurs the bloffom'd boughs around,

That clothe the garden's fouthern bound:
Scarce a fickly ftraggling flower

Decks the rough caftle's rifted tower:
Scarce the hardy primofe peeps

From the dark dell's entangled steeps;

V. 10. Scarce a bee, with airy ring,

Murmurs the bloffom'd boughs around,

That clothe the garden's fouthern bound:]

10

15

"What hypercritic (fays the prefent Poet-laureat in his Commentary on Ariftotle) would cenfure thefe lines, because the "fouth wall of a garden is its northern bound?" P. 501. See Theocritus, Idyll. i. ver. 107.

Ωδε καλον βομβεύντι ποτι σμάνεσσι μελίσσαι.

Milton in Par. Reg. iv. 247:

There flowery hill Hymettus with the found

Of bees induftrious murmur.

V. 15. Scarce the hardy primrose peeps] So Fairfax describes the opening of the rofe:

The gentlie budding rofe, quoth she, behold

That firft fcant peeping forth with virgin beames,
Halfe ope, halfe fhut, her beauties doth unfold.

And Spenfer imitating the fame paffage :

Tafso, xvi. 14.

Ah! fee the virgin Rofe, how fweetly shee
Doth first peepe forth with bashfull modestee.

F. Q. II. xii. 74.

And Ph. Fletcher, of the flowers in spring;
Peep out again from their unfrozen tomb.

Purple Island, vi. 68.

And Drayton, in England's Heroical Epifiles;
One bloffom forth after another peeps. Vol. i. p. 225.

O'er the field of waving broom

Slowly shoots the golden bloom :

And, but by fits, the furze-clad dale
Tinctures the tranfitory gale.

While from the shrubbery's naked maze,
Where the vegetable blaze

Of Flora's brightest 'broidery fhone,
Every chequer'd charm is flown ;
Save that the lilac hangs to view
Its bursting gems in clusters blue,

Scant along the ridgy land

The beans their new-born ranks expand:
The fresh-turn'd foil with tender blades
Thinly the fprouting barley fhades:
Fringing the foreft's devious edge,

Half rob'd appears the hawthorn hedge;

V. 22. Where the vegetable blaze

Of Flora's brightest 'broidery fhone,]

He feems to have had Milton in his mind: -blooming ambrofial fruit

Of vegetable gold. Par. Loft, iv. 218.

[blocks in formation]

V. 32. Half rob'd appears the hawthorn hedge; &c.] Spenfer notices much the fame circumftances in a pleafing pastoral man

ner:

-Winter's wrath begins to quell,

And pleasant spring appeareth.
The grafs now 'gins to be refresht,
The fwallow peeps out of her neft,
And cloudy welkin cleareth.

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