Propitious God of Love, thy succour bring; SILVIA. Beauteous Aminta is as early light, Breaking the melancholy shades of night. When she is near, all anxious trouble flies; And our reviving hearts confess her eyes. Young love, and blooming joy, and gay desires, In ev'ry breast the beauteous nymph inspires: And on the plain when she no more appears, The plain a dark and gloomy prospect wears. In vain the streams roll on: the eastern breeze Dances in vain among the trembling trees. In vain the birds begin their ev'ning song, And to the silent night their notes prolong: Nor groves, nor crystal streams, nor verdant field Does wonted pleasure in her absence yield. AMARYLLIS. And in his absence, all the pensive day, In some obscure retreat I lonely stray; All day to the repeating caves complain, In mournful accents, and a dying strain. 20 30 40 Dear lovely youth, I cry to all around: SILVIA. On flow'ry banks, by ev'ry murm'ring stream, Aminta is my Muse's softest theme: 'Tis she that does my artful notes refine: With fair Aminta's name my noblest verse shall shine. 50 AMARYLLIS. I'll twine fresh garlands for Alexis' brows, The charming youth shall my Apollo prove: TO THE AUTHOR OF THE FOREGOING PASTORAL. Y Silvia if thy charming self be meant; When for thy head the garland I prepare; My heart shall own the justice of her cause; And thy fond heart beats measure to thy strains, 10 Pan guard thy flock, and Ceres bless thy board. 20 TO A LADY: SHE REFUSING TO CONTINUE A DISPUTE WITH ME AND LEAVING ME IN THE ARGUMENT. AN ODE. PARE, gen'rous Victor, spare the slave, That more than triumph he might have, In the dispute whate'er I said, My heart was by my tongue belied; You, far from danger as from fear, Your eyes are always in the right. Why, fair one, would you not rely I must at once be deaf and blind. Alas! not hoping to subdue, I only to the fight aspir'd: To keep the beauteous foe in view But she, howe'er of vict'ry sure, Contemns the wreath too long delay'd; And, arm'd with more immediate power, Calls cruel silence to her aid. Deeper to wound, she shuns the fight: And triumphs, when she seems to yield. So when the Parthian turn'd his steed, And from the hostile camp withdrew; With cruel skill the backward reed He sent; and as he fled, he slew. 10 20 30 SEEING THE DUKE OF ORMOND'S⭑ PICTURE AT SIR GODFREY KNELLER'S. UT from the injur'd canvas, Kneller, strike These lines too faint: the picture is not Exalt thy thought, and try thy toil again : * James Duke of Ormond, eldest son of Thomas, Earl or Ossory. He succeeded his grandfather in title and estate in the year 1688; was bred at Christ Church in the university of Oxford, and after holding many considerable posts during the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, was, in the beginning of the reign of George the First, attainted of high treason on account of his being concerned in the unpopular measures of the last four years of Queen Anne's reign. He died in exile in the year 1745, at a very advanced age. † At the battle of Landen the Duke of Ormond was taken prisoner after his horse was shot under him, and he had received many wounds. Mr. Dryden, in his dedication prefixed to his Fables in the year 1699, says, "Yet not to be wholly silent of all your charities, I must stay a little on one action, which preferred the relief of others to the consideration of yourself. When, in the battle of Landen, your heat of courage (a fault only pardonable to your youth) had transported you so far before your friends, that they were unable to follow, much less to succour you; when you were not only dangerously, but in all appearance mortally wounded, when in that desperate condition you were made prisoner, and carried to Namur, at that time in possession of the French; then it was, my Lord, that you took a considerable |