English

Fond, timid creature! fear not me;
Think not I mean to injure thee;
I am not come with hard intent,
To steal the treasure Heaven hath sent;
Hovering with fond anxiety
Around thine unfledg'd family,
Fearful and tender as thou art,
Each step alarms thy failing heart!
But let those fluttering plumes lie still,
Those needless terrors cease to feel!
Why hop so fast from bough to bough?
Thou hear'st no hostile footstep now.
Compose thy feathers, ease thy fear,
No cruel purpose brought me here:

Must thou, sweet bird, no more thy master cheer?
No more shall I thine artless chantings hear?
Oh skill'd in music's pure simplicity!
How have my tranquil hours been blest by thee!
When tir'd with efforts of laborious thought,
Sooth'd were my languors by thy sprightly note:
When borne on Poesy's swift-sailing wing,
To some fair scene, all paradise and spring,
Listening to thee, I felt the scene more fair,
And with a wilder transport wander'd there:
When (by dark, threat'ning clouds a captive made)

Loud roaring Winter now is o'er,
 And Spring returns with fragrance sweet;
The Bee sips nectar from each flow'r,
 And frisking lambs on hillocks bleat;

The little birds chant on each bough,
 And warbling Larks, ascending, sing,
Chearful, amid the sun's bright glow,
 They sweep around with sportive wing.

How pleasant, now, abroad to rove,
 To view the fruit-trees as they bloom;
To pull the flow'rs that deck each grove,
 Or wander thro' the yellow broom.

Yet midst the pleasures we enjoy,

Dear Willy, now I've ta'en the pen,
Wi' lightsome heart, to let you ken
I'm livin' yet and weel;
Tho' cuft and dauded gayan sair,
Since last I left that luckless A — ,
Thro' mony a moor an' fiel'.
Misfortunes, on ilk ithers backs,
Come roaring whyles aroun' me;
For comfort to the blue I rax,
Or ablins they might drown me,
What sights, man, what frights, man,

From the VIIth Book of L UCAN .

Then dire Pharsalia 's Plain all breathing Blood
Call'd forth the Wolves and Tygers from the Wood,
And gorg'd the Lyons with her horrid Food.
Each left his common Prey, his Fellow-Beast,
To riot on a more luxurious Feast;
The Bears forsook their Caves for this Repast,
And Dogs obscene ran howling o'er the Wast;
All Animals that scent the Tainted Air,
Of Smell sagacious, came exulting there.
The Birds that wont at Battels to appear,
Move with the Camp, and hover in the Rear,

Spare thy reproach, thou more than tongue,
That little, lively eye!
It was not I that stole thy young;
Indeed it was not I.

With pleasure equal to thine own,
I've watch'd thy tender brood;
And mark'd how fondly thou hast flown,
To bear them daily food.

Nor e'en than thine with less delight,
I look'd and long'd to see,
The first attempts of infant flight,
With patience taught by thee.

And now that restless thou dost rove,
And with sad note repine,
Think not, lorn mourner, that I prove

Kala, old Mopsus' wife,
Kala with fairest face,
For whom the neighbour swaines oft were at strife,
As shee to milke her milke-white flocke did tend,
Sigh'd with a heauie grace,
And said, what wretch like mee doth leade her life?
I see not how my taske can haue an end;
All day I draw these streaming dugs in fold,
All night mine emptie husband's soft and cold.

All that a dog could haue,
The good Melampus had;
Nay, hee had more than what in beasts wee craue,
For hee could playe the braue,
And often like a Thraso sterne goe mad;
And if yee had not seene, but heard him barke,
Yee would haue sworne hee was your parish clarke.

Venus doth loue the rose;
Apollo those deare flowrs
Which were his paramours;
The queene of sable skies
The subtile lunaries;
But Flore likes none of those,
For faire to her no flowre seemes saue the lillie:
And why? because one letter turnes it P.

Then death thee hath beguild,
Alecto's first borne child;
Thou who didst thrall all lawes,
Then against wormes canst not maintaine thy cause;
Yet wormes, more iust than thou, now doe no wrong,
Sith all doe wonder they thee spar'd so long,
For though from life but lately thou didst passe,
Ten springs are gone since thou corrupted was.