WHILE in this park I sing, the list'ning deer
Attend my passion, and forget to fear;
When to the beeches I report my flame,
They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.
To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers
With loud complaints, they answer me in showers.
To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,
More deaf than trees, and prouder than the
heaven!
Love's foe profess'd! why dost thou falsely feign
Thyself a Sidney? from which noble strain
He sprung,2 that could so far exalt the name
Of love, and warm our nation with his flame;
That all we can of love, or high desire,
Seems but the smoke of am'rous Sidney's fire.
Nor call her mother, who so well does prove
One breast may hold both chastity and love.
Never can she, that so exceeds the spring
In joy and bounty, be supposed to bring
One so destructive. To no human stock
We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock,
That cloven rock produced thee, by whose side
Nature, to recompense the fatal pride
Of such stern beauty, placed those healing springs,3
Which not more help, than that destruction, brings.
Thy heart no ruder than the rugged stone,
I might, like Orpheus, with my num'rous moan
Melt to compassion; now, my trait'rous song
With thee conspires to do the singer wrong;
1 Penshurst': his farewell verses to Dorothy. Sprung': Sir Philip Sidney.Springs': Tunbridge Wells.
While thus I suffer not myself to lose
The memory of what augments my woes;
But with my own breath still foment the fire,
Which flames as high as fancy can aspire!
This last complaint th' indulgent ears did pierce
Of just Apollo, president of verse ;
Highly concerned that the Muse should bring
Damage to one whom he had taught to sing,
Thus he advised me: On yon aged tree
Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea,
That there with wonders thy diverted mind
Some truce, at least, may with this passion find.'
Ah, cruel nymph! from whom her humble swain
Flies for relief unto the raging main,
And from the winds and tempests does expect
A milder fate than from her cold neglect !
Yet there he'll pray that the unkind may prove
Bless'd in her choice; and vows this endless love
Springs from no hope of what she can confer,
But from those gifts which Heaven has heap'd on her.
THE BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.1
What fruits they have, and how Heaven smiles
Upon these late-discovered isles.
AID me, Bellona! while the dreadful fight
Betwixt a nation and two whales I write.
1 Summer Islands': the Bermudas, which received the name of the Summer Islands, or more properly, Somers' Islands, from Sir George Somers, who was cast away on the coast early in the seventeenth century, and established a colony there.
Seas stain'd with gore I sing, advent'rous toil!
And how these monsters did disarm an isle.
Bermuda, wall'd with rocks, who does not
know?
That happy island where huge lemons grow,
And orange-trees, which golden fruit do bear,
Th' Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair;
Where shining pearl, coral, and many a pound,
On the rich shore, of ambergris is found.
The lofty cedar, which to heaven aspires,
The prince of trees! is fuel to their fires;
The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn,
For incense might on sacred altars burn;
Their private roofs on od'rous timber borne,
Such as might palaces for kings adorn.
The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,1
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,
Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs
They sit, carousing where their liquor grows.
Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow,
Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,
With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil
Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil.
The naked rocks are not unfruitful there,
But, at some constant seasons, every year,
Their barren tops with luscious food abound,
And with the eggs of various fowls are crown'd.
Tobacco is the worst of things, which they
To English landlords, as their tribute, pay.
Such is the mould, that the bless'd tenant feeds
On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.
With candied plantains, and the juicy pine,
'Bacchus yield': from the palmetto, a species of palm in the West Indies, is extracted an intoxicating drink.
On choicest melons, and sweet grapes, they dine,
And with potatoes fat their wanton swine.
Nature these cates with such a lavish hand
Pours out among them, that our coarser land
Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return,
Which not for warmth, but ornament, is worn;
For the kind spring, which but salutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live;
At once they promise what at once they give.
So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,
None sickly lives, or dies before his time.
Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursed,
To show how all things were created first.
The tardy plants in our cold orchards placed,
Reserve their fruit for the next age's taste;
There a small grain in some few months will be
A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree.
The palma-christi, and the fair papà,
Now but a seed (preventing nature's law),
In half the circle of the hasty year
Project a shade, and lovely fruits do wear.
And as their trees in our dull region set,
But faintly grow, and no perfection get,
So, in this northern tract, our hoarser throats
Utter unripe and ill-constrained notes,
While the supporter of the poets' style,
Phœbus, on them eternally does smile.
Oh! how I long my careless limbs to lay
Under the plantain's shade, and all the day
With am'rous airs my fancy entertain,
Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein!
No passion there in my free breast should move,
None but the sweet and best of passions, love.
There while I sing, if gentle love be by,
That tunes my lute, and winds the string so high,
With the sweet sound of Saccharissa's name
I'll make the list'ning savages grow tame.—
But while I do these pleasing dreams indite,
I am diverted from the promised fight.
Of their alarm, and how their foes
Discover'd were, this Canto shows.
THOUGH rocks so high about this island rise,
That well they may the num'rous Turk despise,
Yet is no human fate exempt from fear,
Which shakes their hearts, while through the isle they hear
A lasting noise, as horrid and as loud
As thunder makes before it breaks the cloud.
Three days they dread this murmur, ere they know From what blind cause th' unwonted sound may grow. At length two monsters of unequal size,
Hard by the shore, a fisherman espies;
Two mighty whales! which swelling seas had toss'd,
And left them pris'ners on the rocky coast.
One as a mountain vast, and with her came
A cub, not much inferior to his dam.
Here in a pool, among the rocks engaged,
They roar'd like lions caught in toils, and raged.
The man knew what they were, who heretofore
Had seen the like lie murder'd on the shore;
By the wild fury of some tempest cast,
The fate of ships, and shipwreck'd men, to taste.
As careless dames, whom wine and sleep betray
To frantic dreams, their infants overlay :
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