Who now, as we retrace the long rough way,
With tale or song will soothe the weary day?

Return unfed, my lambs! you once were dear:
But now I slight you for a care more near.
To whom my bosom shall I now confide?

At whose soft voice will now my cares subside?
Who now will cheat the night with harmless mirth,
As the nut crackles on the glowing hearth,

Or the pear hisses; while without-the storm
Roars through the wood, and ruffles nature's form?
Home to your fold, my lambs! unfed depart!
You cannot touch when sorrow wrings the heart!
In summer too, at noontide's sultry hour,
When Pan lies sleeping in his beechen bower;
When, diving from the day's oppressive heat,
The panting naiad seeks her crystal seat;
When every shepherd leaves the silent plain,
And the green hedge protects the snoring swain;
Whose playful fancy then shall light the smile?
Whose attic tongue relieve my languid toil?

Go, lambs, unfed! no more my care confest:
Grief will not bear a partner in my breast.
Ah! now through meads and vales alone I stray,
Or linger sad where woods embrown the day;
As drives the storm, and Eurus o'er my head
Breaks the loose twilight of the billowy shade.
Return unfed, my lambs! a shepherd's care
You ask in vain from him who feels despair.

which are too good for me to appropriate to myself or to withhold from my readers. The first of these lines is my own; the others are Mr. Gifford's.

"Who now with me, tried partner of my toil,"
Will brave the chilling sky, and frost-bound soil?
Or when the sun with fiercer glory reigns,
And nature faints along the thirsty plains;
Dauntless, like thee, the prowling lion face;
And from the fold the gaunt hyæna chase?

My late trim fields their labour'd culture scorn;
And idle weeds insult my drooping corn.
My widow'd vine, in prone dishonour, sees
Her clusters wither;-not a shrub can please.—
E'en my sheep tire me:-they with upward eyes
Gaze at my grief; and seem to feel my sighs.

Hence home, my lambs, unfed! the day is done:
Once you had all my care, and now have none.
My shepherd-friends, by various tastes inclined,
Direct my steps the sweetest spot to find.
This likes the hazel,-that the beechen grove:
One bids me here,-one there for pleasure rove.
Egon the willow's pensile shade delights;
And gay Amyntas to the streams invites:
"Here are cool fountains: here is mossy grass:
"Here zephyrs softly whisper as they pass:

"From this bright spring yon arbute draws her green,
"The pride and beauty of the sylvan scene."
Deaf is my woe;-and, while they speak in vain,

I plunge into the copse, and hide my pain.

Go, lambs, unfed! no more I mind your weal: My own sad doom is all I now can feel. Mopsus surprised me in my sullen mood, (Mopsus who knew the language of the wood; Knew all the stars, could all their junctions spell.) And thus," What passions in your bosom swell? "Speak! flows the poison from disastrous love? "Or falls the mischief star-sent from above? "For leaden Saturn, with his chill controll, "Of has shot blights into the shepherd's soul." Return, my lambs! nor hope your wonted food From me, now wrapt in sorrow's gloomy mood. The wond'ring nymphs exclaim,-" What, Thyrsis, now? "Those heavy eyelids, and that cloudy brow

"Become not youth to youth the jocund song,

"Frolic, and dance, and wanton wiles belong:

"With these he courts the joys which suit his state: "Ah! twice unhappy he, who loves too late!"

Return, my lambs, unfed! nor here implore Your shepherd's care that lives for you no more. With Dryope and Hyas, Ægle came,

A lovely lyrist, but a scornful dame.

From Chelmer's banks fair Chloris join'd the train.
But vain their blandishments,-their solace vain.—
Dead is my hope, and pointless beauty's dart
To waken torpid pleasure in my heart.

Return, my lambs, unfed! you hope in vain
To find attention in the breast of pain.

How blest, where, none repulsed and none preferr'd,
One common friendship blends the lowing herd!
Touch'd by no subtle magnet in the mind,
Each meets a comrade when he meets his kind.
Conspiring wolves enjoy this equal love,
And this the zebra's party-coloured drove:
This too the tribes of ocean, and the flock
Which Proteus feeds beneath his vaulted rock.
The sparrow, fearless of a lonely state,
Has ever for his social wing a mate:

Whom should the falcon cr the marksman strike,
He soon repairs his loss, and finds a like.
But we, by fate's severer frown oppress'd,
With war and sharp repulsion in the breast,
Can scarcely meet, amid the human throng,
One kindred soul, or, met, preserve him long.
When fortune, now determined to be kind,
Yields the rich gift, and mind is link'd to mind,
Death mocks the fond possession, bursts the chain,
And plants the bosom with perennial pain.
Unheeded and unfed, my lambs, return:
Your hapless master now can only mourn.
Alas, what madness tempted me to stray
Where other suns on distant regions play?
To tread aërial paths and Alpine snows,
Scared by stern nature's terrible repose?
Ah! could the sepulchre of buried Rome
Thus urge my frantic foot to spurn my home?

Though Rome were now, as once in pomp array'd
She drew the Mantuan from his flock and shade;
Ah! could she lure me from thy faithful side;
Lead me where rocks would part us, floods divide;
Forests and lofty mountains intervene;

Whole realms extend, and oceans roar between ?
Ah, wretch denied to press thy fainting hand,
Close thy dim eyes, and catch thy last command;
To say,
My friend, O think of all our love,
"And bear it glowing to the realms above."
Go! go, my lambs! unfed I bid you go:
Unjust to you as faithful to my woe.

Yet must I not deplore the hours that flew,

Ye Tuscan swains, with science and with you:

Each Grace and Muse is yours,-and yours my Damon too.
From ancient Lucca's Tuscan walls he came,
With you in country, talents, arts the same.
How happy, lull'd by Arno's warbling stream,
Hid by his poplars from day's flaring beam,
When stretch'd along the fragrant moss I lay,
And cull'd the violet or pluck'd the bay;
Or heard, contending for the rural prize,
Famed Lycid's and Menalcas' melodies.
I too essay'd to sing:-nor vainly sung:
This flute, these baskets speak my victor tongue:
And Datis and Francinus, swains who trace
Their Tuscan lineage to the Lydian race,
Dear to the Muses both, with friendly care
Taught their carved trees my favour'd name to bear.
Return, my lambs, without your daily due:
Lost to myself, I now am lost to you.
Then, as the moonbeam slumber'd on the plain,
I penn'd my fold, and sung in cheerful strain:
And oft exclaim'd, unconscious of my doom,
As your pale ashes moulder'd in the tomb,
"Now-Damon chants his lay:-he now prepares
"His twisted osiers, or his wiry snares."
Then would rash fancy on the future seize,
And hail you present in such words as these:-

"What loitering here? unless some cause dissuade,
"Haste and enjoy with me the whispering shade;
"Or where his course the lucid Colnus bends;
"Or where Cassibelan's domain extends.
"There show what herbs in vale or upland grow;
"The harebell's ringlet, and the saffron's glow:
"There teach me all the physic of the plains,
"What healing virtues swell the floret's veins."
Ah! perish all the healing plants, confest

Too weak to save the swain who knew them best!
As late a new-compacted pipe I found,
It gave beneath my lips a loftier sound:
Too high indeed the notes, for as it spoke,
The waxen junctures in the labour broke.
Smile as you may,-I will not hide from you
The ambitious strain:-ye woods, awhile adieu!

Hence! home my lambs, unfed! more powerful cares
Usurp my thought, and make it wholly theirs.
High on Rutupium's cliffs, my Muse shall hail
The first white gleamings of the Dardan sail:
Shall sing the realms by Inogen controll'd,
And Brennus, Arvirage, and Belin old:
Shall sing Armorica, at length subdued
By British steel in Gallic blood imbrued:
And Uther in the form of Gorlois led,
By Merlin's fraud, to Iögerne's bed;

Whence Arthur sprang. If length of days be mine,
My shepherd's pipe shall hang on yon old pine

In long neglect; or, tuned to British strains,
With British airs shall please my native swains.
But wherefore so? alas! no human mind
Can hope for audience all the human kind.
Enough for me,-I ask no more renown,
(Lost to the world, to Britain only known.)

d He expresses the same generous and patriotic sentiment in one of his prose tracts. "For which cause, and not only for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution, which