In this blest season, pregnant with delight,
Ne may the boading owl with screeches wound
The solemn silence of the quiet night,
Ne croaking raven, with unhallow'd sound,
Ne damned ghost affray with deadly yell
The waking lover, rais'd by mighty spell,

To pale the stars, till Hesper shine it back to Hell.

Ne witches rifle gibbets, by the Moon,
(With horrour winking, trembling all with fear)
Of many a clinking chain, and canker'd bone:
Nor imp in visionary shape appear,

To blast the thriving verdure of the plain;
Ne let hobgoblin, ne the ponk, profane [ing brain.
With shadowy glare the light, and mad the burst-

Yet fairy-elves (so ancient custom's will8)
The green-gown'd fairy elves, by starry sheen 9,
May gambol or in valley or on hill,
And leave their footsteps on the circled green.
Full lightly trip it, dapper Mab, around;
Full featly, Ob'ron, thou, o'er grass-turf bound:
Mab brushes off no dew-drops, Ob'ron prints no
ground.

Ne bloody rumours violate the ear,
Of cities sack'd, and kingdoms desolate,
With plague or sword, with pestilence or war;
Ne rueful murder stain thy era-date;
Ne shameless Calumny, for fell despight,
The foulest fiend that e'er blasphem'd the light,
At lovely lady rail, nor grin at courteous knight.

Ne wailing in our streets nor fields be heard,
Ne voice of Misery assault the heart;
Ne fatherless from table be debar'd;
Ne piteous tear from ye of Sorrow start;
But Plenty, pour thyself into the bowl
Of bounty-head; may never Want control

And while the virgins hail thee with their voice,
Heaping thy crowded way with greens and flow'rs,
And in the fondness of their heart rejoice
To sooth, with dance and song, thy geutler hours;
Indulge the season, and with sweet repair
Embay thy limbs, the vernal beauties share:
Then blaze in arms again, renew'd for future war

Britannia's happy isle derives from May
The choicest blessings Liberty bestows:
When royal Charles (for ever hail the day!)
In mercy triumph'd o'er ignoble foes.
Restor'd with him, the Arts the drooping head
Gaily again uprear'd; the Muses' shade [array'd.
With fresher honours bloom'd, in greener trim

And thou, the goodliest blossom of our isles!
Great Frederic's and his Augusta's joy,
Thy native month approv'd with infant-smiles,
Sweet as the smiling May, imperial boy!
Britannia hopes thee for her future lord,
Lov'd as thy parents, only not ador'd!
Whene'er a George is born, Charles is again re-
stor'd.

O may his father's pant for finer fame,
And boundless bounty head to humankind;
His grandsire's glory, and his uncle's name,
Renown'd in war! inflame his ardent mind:
So arts shall flourish 'neath his equal sway,
So arms the hostile nations wide affray;
The laurel, Victory; Apollo, wear the bay.

Through kind infusion of celestial pow'r,
The dullard-Earth May quick'neth with delight:
Full suddenly the seeds of joy recure3
Elastic spring, and force within empight 4.
If senseless elements invigorate prove
By gemal May, and heavy matter move,

[love?

Ye shepherdesses, in a goodly round,
Purpled with health, as in the greenwood-shade,
Incontinent ye thump the echoing ground
And deftly 5 lead the dance along the glade!
(O may no show'rs your merry-makes affray!)
Hail at the op'ning, at the closing day,
All hail, ye bonnibels6, to your own season, May.

Nor ye absent yourselves, ye shepherd-swains,
But lend to dance and song the liberal May,
And while in jocund ranks you beat the plains,
Your flocks shall nibble, and your lambkins play,
Frisking in glee. To May your girlands bring,
And ever and anon her praises sing:

The woods shall echo May, with May the valleys ring.

Your May-pole deck with flow'ry coronal;
Sprinkle the flow'ry coronal with wine,
And in the nimble-footed galliard, all,
Shepherds and shepherdesses, lively, join.
Hither from village sweet and hamlet fair,
From bordering cot and distant glenne repair:
Let youth indulge its sport, to eld & bequeath its

care.

3 Recover.

8

4 Placed, fixed. 5 Finely.

6 Pretty women. 8 Old age.

7 A country hamlet.

Ye wanton Dryads and light-tripping Fawns,
Ye jolly Satyrs, full of lustyhead 9,

And ye that haunt the hills, the brooks, the lawns;
O come with rural chaplets gay dispread :
With heel so nimble wear the springing grass,
To shrilling bagpipe, or to tinkling brass;
Or foot it to the reed: Pan pipes himself apace.

In this soft season, when Creation smil'd,
A quivering splendour on the Ocean hung,
And from the fruitful froth, his fairest child,
The queen of bliss and beauty, Venus sprung.
The dolphins gambol o'er the wat'ry way,
Carol the Naiads, while the Tritons play,
And all the sea-green sisters bless the holy-day.

In honour of her natal-month, the queen
Of bliss and beauty consecrates her hours,
Fresh as her cheek, and as her brow serene,
To buxom ladies, and their paramours.
Love tips with golden alchymy his dart;
With rapt'rous anguish, with an honey'd smart
Eye languishes on eye, and heart dissolves
heart.

A softly-swelling hill, with myrtles crown'd,
(Myrtles to Venus algates' sacred been)
Hight Acidale, the fairest spot on ground,
For ever fragrant and for ever green,
O'erlooks the windings of a shady vale,
By Beauty form'd for amorous regale.
Was ever hill so sweet as sweetest Acidale?

on

All down the sides, the sides profuse of flow'rs,
An hundred rills, in shining mazes, flow
Through mossy grotto's amaranthine bow'rs,
And form a laughing flood in vale below:
Where oft their limbs the Loves and Graces bay
(When Summer sheds insufferable day)

And sport, and dive, and flounce in wantonness of play.

No noise o'ercomes the silence of the shades,
Save short-breath'd vows, the dear excess of joy;
Or harmless giggle of the youths and maids,
Who yield obeysance to the Cyprian boy :
Or lute, soft-sighing in the passing gale;
Or fountain gurgling down the sacred vale,
Or hymn to beauty's queen, or lover's tender
tale.

Hard is his heart, unmelted by thee, May!
Unconscious of Love's nectar-tickling sting,
And, unrelenting, cold to Beauty's ray;
Beauty the mother and the child of Spring!
Beauty and Wit declare the sexes even;
Beauty, to woman, Wit to man is given;
Neither the slime of Earth, but each the fire of
Heav'n.

Alliance sweet! let Beauty Wit approve,

As flow'rs to sunshine ope the ready breast:
Wit Beauty loves, and nothing else can love :
The best alone is grateful to the best.
Perfection has no other parallel !

Can light, with darkness; doves with ravens dwell?

As soon, perdie 5, shall Heav'n communion hold

with Hell.

I sing to you, who love alone for love:
For gold the beauteous fools (O fools besure!)
Can win; tho' brighter Wit shall never move:
But Folly is to Wit the certain cure.
Curs'd be the men, (or be they young or old)
Curs'd be the women, who themselves have sold
To the detested bed for lucre base of gold.

Not Julia such: she higher honour deem'd
To languish in the Sulmo poet's arms,
Than, by the potentates of Earth esteem'd,
To give to sceptres and to crowns her charms.
Not Laura such: in sweet Vauclusa's vale
She list'ned to her Petrarch's amorous tale.
But did poor Colin Clout o'er Rosalind prevail?

Howe'er that be; in Acidalian shade,
Embracing Julia, Ovid melts the day:
No dreams of banishment his loves invade;
Encircled in eternity of May,

Here Petrarch with his Laura, soft reclin'd
On violets, gives sorrow to the wind:
And Colin Clout pipes to the yielding Rosalind.

5 An old word for asserting any thing. 6 Spenser.

7 These three celebrated poets and lovers were all of them unhappy in their amours. Ovid was banished on account of his passion for Julia. Death deprived Petrarch of his beloved Laura very early; as he himself tells us in his account of his own life. These are his words: " Amore acerrimo, sed unico & honesto, in adolescentia Jaboravi, & diutius laborassem, nisi jam teposcentem ignem mors acerba, sed utilis, extinxisset." See his works, Basil, fol. tom. 1. Yet others say, she married another person; which is scarce probable; since Petrarch lamented her death for ten years afterwards, as appears from Sonetto 313, with a most uncommon ardour of passion. Thomasinus in his curious book, called Petrarcha Redivivus, has given us two prints of Laura, with an account of her family, their loves, and his. sweet retirement in Vaucluse. As for Spenser, we may conclude that his love for Rosalinda proved unsuccessful from his pathetical complaints, in several of his poems, of her cruelty. The author, therefore, thought it only a poetical kind of justice to reward them in this imaginary retreat of lovers, for the misfortunes they really suffered here on account of their passion.

Pipe on, thou sweetest of th' Arcadian-train,
That e'er with tuneful breath inform'd the quill:
Pipe on, of lovers the most loving swain!
Of bliss and melody O take thy fill.
Ne envy I, if dear lanthe smile,

Tho' low my numbers, and tho' rude my style;
Ne quit for Acidale, fair Albion's happy isle.

Come then Ianthe! milder than the Spring,
And grateful as the rosy mouth of May,
O come; the birds the hymn of Nature sing,
Enchanting-wild, from every bush and spray :
Swell th' green gems and teem along the vine,
A fragrant promise of the future wine,
The spirits to exalt, the genius to refine!

Let us our steps direct where father-Thames,
In silver windings draws his humid train,
And pours, where'er he rolls his naval-stream,
Pomp on the city, plenty o'er the plain.
Or by the banks of Isis shall we stray,
(Ah why so long from Isis banks away!),
Where thousand damsels dance, and thousand
shepherds play.

Amid the pleasaunce of Arcadian scenes,
Love steals his silent arrows on my breast;
Nor falls of water, nor enamel'd greens,
Can soothe my anguish, or invite to rest.
You, dear lanthe, you alone impart
Balm to my wounds, and cordial to my smart:
The apple of my eye, the life-blood of my heart.

With line of silk, with hook of barbed steel,
Beneath this oaken umbrage let us lay,
And from the water's crystal-bosom steal
Upon the grassy bank the finny prey:
The perch, with purple speckled manifold;
The eel, in silver labyrinth self-roll'd,

And carp, all burnish'd o'er with drops of scaly gold.

Or shall the meads invite, with Iris-bues
And Nature's pencil gay-diversify'd,
(For now the Sun has lick'd away the dews)
Fair-flushing and bedeck'd like virgin-bride?
Thither, (for they invite us) we'll repair,
Collect and weave (whate'er is sweet and fair)
A posy for thy breast, a garland for thy hair.

Fair is the lily clad in balmy snow;
Sweet is the rose, of Spring the smiling eye;
Nipt by the winds, their heads the lilies bow;
Cropt by the hand, the roses fade and die.
Tho' now in pride of youth and beauty drest,
O think, lanthe, crucl Time lays waste
The roses of the cheek, the lilies of the breast.

Weep not; but, rather taught by this, improve
The present freshness of thy springing prime:
Bestow thy graces on the god of love,
Too precious for the wither'd arms of Time.

In chaste endearments, innocently gay,
lanthe! now, now love thy Spring away;
Ere cold October-blasts despoil the bloom of May.

Now up the chalky mazes of yon hill,
With grateful diligence, we wind our way;
What op'ning scenes our ravish'd senses fill,
And, wide, their rural luxury display ! [spires,
Woods, dales, and flocks, and herds, and cots and
Villas of learned clerks, and gentle squires;
The villa of a friend the eye-sight never tires.

If e'er to thee and Venus, May, I strung
The gladsome lyre, when livelood 8 swell'd my
veins,

And Eden's nymphs and Isis' damsels 'sung
In tender elegy", and pastoral-strains';
Collect and shed thyself on Theron's bowr's,
O green his gardens, O perfume his flow'rs,
O bless his morning-walks and sooth his ev'ning-
hours.

Long, Theron, with thy Annabell enjoy
The walks of Nature, still to Virtue kind,
For sacred solitude can never cloy,
The wisdom of an uncorrupted mind!
O very long may Hymen's golden chain
To Earth confine you and the rural-reign;
Then soar, at length, to Heaven! nor pray, O
Muse, in vain.

Where'er the Muses haunt, or poets muse,
In solitary silence sweetly tir'd,
Unloose thy bosom, May! thy stores effuse,
Thy vernal stores, by poets most desir'd,
Of living fountain, of the wood-bind-shade,
Of Philomela, warbling from the glade.
Thy bounty, in his verse, shall certes be repaid.

On Twit'nam-bow'rs (Aonian Twit'nam bow'rs!)
Thy softest plenitude of beauties shed,
Thick as the winter-stars, or summer-flow'rs;
Albe the tuneful master (ah!) be dead.
To Colin next he taught my youth to sing,
My reed to warble, to resound my string:
The king of shepherds he, of poets he the king,

Hail, happy scenes, where Joy wou'd choose to dwell;

Hail, golden days, which Saturn deems his own;
Hail, music, which the Muses scant excel;
Hail, flow'reis, not unworthy Venus' crown.
Ye linnets, larks, ye thrushes, nightingales;
Ye hills, ye plains, ye groves, ye streams, ye gales,
Ye ever-happy scenes! all you, your poet hails.

All-hail to thee, O May! the crown of all!
The recompense and glory of my song:
Ne small the recompense, ne glory small,
If gentle ladies, and the tuneful-throng,
With lover's myrtle, and with poet's bay
Fairly bedight4, approve the simple lay,
And think on Thoinalin whene'er they hail thee,
May!

8 Liveliness.

9 Stella; sive Amores: Elegiarum Tres Libri. Written in the year 1736.

Six pastorals: written in the year 1734. • Altho' 3 Scarcely. • Adorned