Chapter XI: Book II: I (5)

To my last labour lend thy sacred aid,
O Arethusa: that the cruel maid
With deep remorse may read the mournful song,
For mournful lays to Gallus' love belong.
(What Muse in sympathy will not bestow
Some tender strains to soothe my Gallus' woe?)
So may thy waters pure of briny stain
Traverse the waves of the Sicilian main.
Sing, mournful Muse, of Gallus' luckless love,
While the goats browse along the cliffs above.
Nor silent is the waste while we complain,
The woods return the long-resounding strain.
Whither, ye fountain-nymphs, were ye withdrawn,
To what lone woodland, or what devious lawn,
When Gallus' bosom languish'd with the fire
Of hopeless love, and unallay'd desire?
For neither by th' Aonian spring you stray'd,
Nor roam'd Parnassus' heights, nor Pindus' hallow'd shade.
The pines of Mænalus were heard to mourn,
And sounds of woe along the groves were borne.
And sympathetic tears the laurel shed,
And humbler shrubs declin'd their drooping head.
All wept his fate, when to despair resign'd
Beneath a desert-cliff he lay reclin'd.
Lyceus' rocks were hung with many a tear,
And round the swain his flocks forlorn appear.
Nor scorn, celestial bard, a poet's name;
Renown'd Adonis by the lonely stream
Tended his flock.--As thus he lay along,
The swains and awkward neatherds round him throng.
Wet from the winter-mast Menalcas came.
All ask, what beauty rais'd the fatal flame.
The god of verse vouchsafed to join the rest;
He said, "What phrensy thus torments thy breast?
While she, thy darling, thy Lycoris, scorns
Thy proffer'd love, and for another burns,
With whom o'er winter-wastes she wanders far,
'Midst camps, and clashing arms, and boisterous war."
Sylvanus came with rural garlands crown'd,
And wav'd the lilies long, and flowering fennel round.
Next we beheld the gay Arcadian god;
His smiling cheeks with bright vermilion glow'd.
"For ever wilt thou heave the bursting sigh?
Is love regardful of the weeping eye?
Love is not cloy'd with tears; alas, no more
Than bees luxurious with the balmy flow'r,
Than goats with foliage, than the grassy plain
With silver rills and soft refreshing rain."
Pan spoke; and thus the youth with grief opprest;
"Arcadians, hear, O hear my last request;
O ye, to whom the sweetest lays belong,
O let my sorrows on your hills be sung:
If your soft flutes shall celebrate my woes,
How will my bones in deepest peace repose!
Ah had I been with you a country-swain,
And prun'd the vine, and fed the bleating train;
Had Phyllis, or some other rural fair,
Or black Amyntas been my darling care;
(Beauteous though black; what lovelier flower is seen
Than the dark violet on the painted green?)
These in the bower had yielded all their charms,
And sunk with mutual raptures in my arms:
Phyllis had crown'd my head with garlands gay,
Amyntas sung the pleasing hours away.
Here, O Lycoris, purls the limped spring,
Bloom all the meads, and all the woodlands sing;
Here let me press thee to my panting breast
Till youth, and joy, and life itself be past.
Banish'd by love o'er hostile lands I stray,
And mingle in the battle's dread array;
Whilst thou, relentless to my constant flame,
(Ah could I disbelieve the voice of fame!)
Far from thy home, unaided and forlorn,
Far from thy love, thy faithful love, art borne,
On the bleak Alps with chilling blast to pine,
Or wander waste along the frozen Rhine.
Ye icy paths, O spare her tender form!
O spare those heavenly charms, thou wintry storm!
"Hence let me hasten to some desert-grove,
And soothe with songs my long unanswer'd love.
I go, in some lone wilderness to suit
Euboean lays to my Sicilian flute.
Better with beasts of prey to make abode
In the deep cavern, or the darksome wood;
And carve on trees the story of my woe,
Which with the growing bark shall ever grow,
Meanwhile with woodland-nymphs, a lovely throng,
The winding groves of Mænalus along
I roam at large; or chase the foaming boar;
Or with sagacious hounds the wilds explore,
Careless of cold. And now methinks I bound
O'er rocks and cliffs, and hear the woods resound;
And now with beating heart I seem to wing
The Cretan arrow from the Parthian string--
As if I thus my phrensy could forego,
As if love's god could melt at human woe.
Alas! nor nymphs nor heavenly songs delight--
Farewell, ye groves! the groves no more invite.
No pains, no miseries of man can move
The unrelenting deity of love.
To quench your thirst in Hebrus' frozen flood,
To make the Scythian snows your drear abode;
Or feed your flock on Ethiopian plains,
When Sirius' fiery constellation reigns,
(When deep-imbrown'd the languid herbage lies,
And in the elm the vivid verdure dies)
Were all in vain. Love's unresisted sway
Extends to all, and we must love obey."
'Tis done: ye Nine, here ends your poet's strain
In pity sung to soothe his Gallus' pain.
While leaning on a flowery bank I twine
The flexile osiers, and the basket join.
Celestial Nine, your sacred influence bring,
And soothe my Gallus' sorrows while I sing:
Gallus, my much belov'd! for whom I feel
The flame of purest friendship rising still:
So by a brook the verdant alders rise,
When fostering zephyrs fan the vernal skies.
Let us begone: at eve, the shade annoys
With noxious damps, and hurts the singer's voice;
The juniper breathes bitter vapours round,
That kill the springing corn, and blast the ground.
Homeward, my sated goats, now let us hie;
Lo beamy Hesper gilds the western sky.

[1] The scene of this pastoral is very accurately delineated. We behold the forlorn Gallus stretched along beneath a solitary cliff, his flocks standing round him at some distance. A group of deities and swains encircle him, each of whom is particularly described. On one side we see the shepherds with their crooks; next to them the neatherds, known by the clumsiness of their appearance; and next to these Menalcas with his clothes wet, as just come from beating or gathering winter-mast. On the other side we observe Apollo with his usual insignia; Sylvanus crowned with flowers, and brandishing in his hand the long lilies and flowering fennel; and last of all, Pan, the god of shepherds, known by his ruddy smiling countenance, and the other peculiarities of his form.

Gallus was a Roman of very considerable rank, a poet of no small estimation, and an intimate friend of Virgil. He loved to distraction one Cytheris (here called Lycoris) who slighted him, and followed Antony into Gaul.

EPITAPH FOR A SHERIFFS MESSENGER;

WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED AT THE PARTICULAR DESIRE OF THE PERSON FOR WHOM IT IS INTENDED.

Alas, how empty all our worldly schemes;
Vain are our wishes, our enjoyment dreams.
A _debt_ to nature one and all must _pay_,
Nor will the _creditor_ defer her _day_;
Death comes a _messenger_, displays the _writ_,
And to the fatal _summons_ all submit.
An earthly _messenger_ I was of yore,
The scourge of debtors then, but now--no more.
Oft have I stood in all my pomp confess'd,
The _blazon_ beaming dreadful at my breast;
Oft have I wav'd on high th' _attractive rod_,
And made the wretch obsequious to my nod.
Pale shivering Poverty, that stalk'd behind,
His greasy rags loose fluttering in the wind,
And Terror, cudgel-arm'd, that strode before,
Still to my _deeds_ unquestion'd _witness bore_.
Dire execution, as I march'd, was spread;
My threat'ning _horn_ they heard--they heard and fled.
While thus destruction mark'd my headlong course,
Nor mortals durst oppose my matchless force,
A _deadly warrant_ from the _court_ of heaven
To Death, the sovereign messenger, was given.
Swift as the lightning's instantaneous flame,
Arm'd with his dart, the _king of catchpoles_ came.
My heart, unmov'd before, was seiz'd with fear,
And sunk beneath his all-subduing spear;
To heaven's high _bar_ the spirit wing'd its way,
And left the carcass _forfeit_ to the clay.
Reader! though every ill beset thee round,
With patience bear, nor servilely despond;
Though heaven awhile delay th' impending blow,
Heaven sees the sorrows of the world below,
And sets at last the suffering mourner free
From famine, misery, pestilence, and ME.

June 28th, 1759. Mont. Abd. Ford.

TO MR. ALEXANDER ROSS,

AT LOCHLEE, AUTHOR OF THE FORTUNATE SHEPHERDESS AND OTHER POEMS IN THE BROAD SCOTCH DIALECT.

O Ross, thou wale of hearty cocks,
Sae crouse and canty with thy jokes!
Thy hamely auldwarl'd muse provokes
Me for awhile
To ape our guid plain countra' folks
In verse and stile.

Sure never carle was haff sae gabby
E're since the winsome days o' Habby:
O mayst thou ne'er gang, clung, or shabby,
Nor miss thy snaker!
Or I'll ca' fortune nasty drabby,
And say--pox take her!

O may the roupe ne'er roust thy weason,
May thirst thy thrapple never gizzen!
But bottled ale in mony a dizzen,
Aye lade thy gantry!
And fouth o'vivres a' in season,
Plenish thy pantry!

Lang may thy stevin fill wi' glee
The glens and mountains of Lochlee,
Which were right gowsty but for thee,
Whase sangs enamour
Ilk lass, and teach wi' melody
The rocks to yamour.

Ye shak your head, but, o' my fegs,
Ye've set old Scota[1] on her legs,
Lang had she lyen wi' beffs and flegs,
Bumbaz'd and dizzie;
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs,
Waes me! poor hizzie!

Since Allan's death naebody car'd
For anes to speer how Scota far'd,
Nor plack nor thristled turner war'd
To quench her drouth;
For frae the cottar to the laird
We a' rin South.

The Southland chiels indeed hae mettle,
And brawly at a sang can ettle,
Yet we right couthily might settle
O' this side Forth.
The devil pay them wi' a pettle
That slight the North.

Our countra leed is far frae barren,
It's even right pithy and aulfarren,
Oursells are neiper-like, I warran,
For sense and smergh;
In kittle times when faes are yarring,
We're no thought ergh.

Oh! bonny are our greensward hows,
Where through the birks the birny rows,
And the bee bums, and the ox lows,
And saft winds rusle;
And shepherd lads on sunny knows
Blaw the blythe fusle.

It's true, we Norlans manna fa'
To eat sae nice or gang sae bra',
As they that come from far awa,
Yet sma's our skaith;
We've peace (and that's well worth it a')
And meat and claith.

Our fine newfangle sparks, I grant ye,
Gie' poor auld Scotland mony a taunty;
They're grown sae ugertfu' and vaunty,
And capernoited,
They guide her like a canker'd aunty
That's deaf and doited.

Sae comes of ignorance I trow,
It's this that crooks their ill fa'r'd mou'
Wi' jokes sae coarse, they gar fouk spue
For downright skonner;
For Scotland wants na sons enew
To do her honour.

I here might gie a skreed o' names,
Dawties of Heliconian dames!
The foremost place Gawin Douglas claims,
That canty priest;
And wha can match the fifth King James
For sang or jest?

Montgomery grave, and Ramsay gay,
Dunbar, Scot,[2] Hawthornden, and mae
Than I can tell; for o' my fae,
I maun break aff;
'Twould take a live lang simmer day
To name the haff.

The saucy chiels--I think they ca' them
Criticks, the muckle sorrow claw them,
(For mense nor manners ne'er could awe them
Frae their presumption)
They need nae try thy jokes to fathom;
They want rumgumption.

But ilka Mearns and Angus bearn,
Thy tales and sangs by heart shall learn,
And chiels shall come frae yont the Cairn--
--Amounth, right yousty,
If Ross will be so kind as share in
Their pint at Drousty.[3]

[1] The name Ross gives to his muse.

[2] Author of the Vision--[It was written by Ramsay, under the name of Scot. A. D.]

[3] An alehouse in Lochlee.

THE END.

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