H

THE

X.

GRASSHOPPE R..

APPY infect! what can be

In happiness compar'd to thee ?

Fed with nourishment divine,
The dewy morning's gentle wine!
Nature waits upon thee ftill,
And thy verdant cup does fill;
'Tis fill'd wherever thou doft tread,
Nature's felf's thy Ganymede.

Thou doft drink, and dance, and' fing;;
Happier than the happiest king!
All the fields which thou dost fee,
All the plants, belong to thee;
All that fummer-hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice.
Man for thee does fow and plow;
Farmer he, and landlord thou!
Thou doft innocently joy;

Nor does thy luxury destroy ;

The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
More harmonious than he.

Thee country hinds with gladness hear,
Prophet of the ripen'd year!

Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire;
Phoebus is himself thy fire.

To thee, of all things upon earth,

Life is no longer than thy mirth.

Happy infect, happy thou!

Doft neither age nor winter know;

But, when thou 'ft drunk, and danc'd, and fung;
Thy fill, the flowery leaves among

(Voluptuous, and wife withal,

Epicurean animal !)

Sated with thy fummer feast,

Thou retir'ft to endless reft.

FOOLISH prater, what doft thou

So early at my window do,

With thy tuneless serenade?

Well 't had been had Tereus made
Thee as dumb as Philomel;

There his knife had done but well.

In thy undiscover'd neft

Thou doft all the winter reft,
And dreameft o'er thy fummer joys,
Free from the formy feasons' noise :
Free from th' ill thou 'st done to me ;
Who difturbs or feeks-out thee?

Hadft thou all the charming notes
Of the wood's poetic throats,

All thy art could never pay

What thou 'ft ta'en from me away.
Cruel bird thou 'ft ta'en away
A dream out of my arms to-day;
A dream, that ne'er must equal'd be
By all that waking eyes may fee.
Thou, this damage to repair,
Nothing half fo fweet or fair,

Nothing half fo good, canft bring,

Though men say thou bring'ft the fpring.

ELEGY

UPON

AN ACREON,

WHO WAS CHOAKED BY A GRAPE-STONE.

Spoken by the God of Love.

H

OW shall I lament thine end,

My beft fervant, and my friend?

Nay, and, if from a Deity

So much deified as I,

It found not too profane and odd,
Oh, my mafter and my god!

For 'tis true, most mighty poet!

(Though I like not men should know it) I am in naked nature lefs,

Lefs by much, than in thy drefs.

All thy verfe is fofter far

Than the downy feathers are

Of my wings, or of my arrows,

Of my mother's doves or sparrows.

Sweet as lovers' freshest kiffes,

Or their riper following bliffes,
Graceful, cleanly, fmooth, and round,
All with Venus' girdle bound;
And thy life was all the while
Kind and gentle as thy ftyle.
The smooth-pac'd hours of every day
Glided numerously away.-

Like thy verse each hour did pass;
Sweet and fhort, like that, it was.
Some do but their youth allow me,
Juft what they by nature owe me,
The time that 's mine, and not their own,,
The certain tribute of my crown:
When they grow old, they grow to be
Too busy, or too wife, for me.

Thou wert wifer, and didft know
None too wife for Love can grow;
Love was with thy life entwin'd,
Close as heat with fire is join'd;
A powerful brand prescrib'd the date
Of thine, like Meleager's, fate.
Th' antiperiftafis of age

More enflam'd thy amorous rage ;.
Thy filver hairs yielded me more
Than even golden curls before.

Had I the power of creation,
As I have of generation,

Where I the matter must obey,
And cannot work plate out of clay,
My creatures fhould be all like thee,
'Tis thou fhouldft their idea be:

They, like thee, fhould throughly hate
Bufinefs, honour, title, state;

Other wealth they fhould not know,
But what my living mines bestow;
The pomp

of kings, they should confefs,
At their crownings, to be less
Than a lover's humbleft guife,
When at his mistrefs' feet he lies.
Rumour they no more should mind
Than men fafe-landed do the wind;
Wisdom itself they should not hear,
When it prefumes to be severe :
Beauty alone they should admire :
Nor look at Fortune's vain attire,
Nor afk what parents it can fhew;
With dead or old 't has nought to do.
They fhould not love yet all or any,
But very much and very many :
All their life should gilded be
With mirth, and wit, and gaiety;

Well remembering and applying

The neceffity of dying.

Their chearful heads fhould always wear

All that crowns the flowery year :

They fhould always laugh, and fing,

And dance, and strike th' harmonious ftring;