To Cynthia's lonely haunts. To fpread the toils,

To beat the coverts, with the jovial horn

At dawn of day to fummon the loud hounds,

She calls the lingering fluggard from his dreams:
And where his breaft may drink the mountain breeze,
And where the fervour of the funny vale

May beat upon his brow, through devious paths
Beckons his rapid courfer. Nor when ease,
Cool eafe and welcome flumbers have becalm'd

His eager bofom, does the queen of health
Her pleasing care withhold. His decent board
She guards, prefiding; and the frugal powers
With joy fedate leads in: and while the brown
Ennæan dame with Pan prefents her ftores;
While changing ftill, and comely in the change,
Vertumnus and the Hours before him spread
The garden's banquet; you to crown his feast,
To crown his feast, O Naiads, you the fair
Hygeia calls and from your fhelving feats,
And groves of poplar, plenteous cups ye bring,
To flake his veins: 'till foon a purer tide
Flows down thofe loaded channels; washeth off
The dregs of luxury, the lurking feeds

Of crude disease; and through the abodes of life

Sends

Sends vigour, fends repofe. Hail, Naiads: hail,
Who give, to labour, health; to stooping age,
The joys which youth had squander'd. Oft your urns
Will I invoke; and, frequent in your praise,
Abash the frantic Thyrfus with my fong.

For not eftrang'd from your benignant arts
Is he, the God, to whose mysterious shrine
My youth was facred, and my votive cares
Are due; the learned Pæon. Oft when all
His cordial treasures he hath fearch'd in vain;
When herbs, and potent trees, and drops. of balm
Rich with the genial influence of the fun,

(To rouze dark fancy from her plaintive dreams,
To brace the nerveless arm, with food to win
Sick appetite, or hush the unquiet breast
Which pines with filent paffion) he in vain
Hath prov'd; to your deep manfions he defcends.
Your
gates of humid rock, your dim arcades,
He entereth; where impurpled veins of ore
Gleam on the roof; where through the rigid mine
Your trickling rills infinuate. There the God
From your indulgent hands the streaming bowl
Wafts to his pale-ey'd fuppliants; wafts the feeds
Metallic and the elemental falts

Wafh'd

Wash'd from the pregnant glebe. They drink: and foon
Flies pain; flies inaufpicious care: and foon
The focial haunt or unfrequented shade

Hears Io, Io Pæan; as of old,

When Python fell. And, O propitious Nymphs,

Oft as for hapless mortals I implore
Your falutary springs, through every urn
O fhed felected atoms, and with all

Your healing powers inform the recent wave.

My lyre fhall pay your bounty. Nor disdain
That humble tribute. Though a mortal hand
Excite the strings to utterance, yet for themes
Not unregarded of cœleftial powers

I frame their language; and the Muses deign
To guide the pious tenour of my lay.
The Mufes (facred by their gifts divine)
In early days did to my wondering sense
Their fecrets oft reveal: oft my rais'd ear
In flumber felt their mufic: oft at noon
Or hour of funfet, by some lonely stream,

In field or fhady grove, they taught me words

Of power from death and envy to preserve

The good man's name. whence yet with grateful mind, And offerings unprofan'd by ruder eye,

VOL. VI.

B

My

My vows I fend, my homage, to the feats
Of rocky Cirrha, where with you they dwell:
Where you their chafte companions they admit
Through all the hallow'd scene: where oft intent,
And leaning o'er Caftalia's moffy verge,
They mark the cadence of your confluent urns,
How tunefull, yielding gratefullest repofe
To their conforted measure: 'till again,
With emulation all the founding choir,
And bright Apollo, leader of the song,
Their voices through the liquid air exalt,

And sweep their lofty strings: those aweful strings,
That charm the minds of Gods: that fill the courts

Of wide Olympus with oblivion fweet
Of evils, with immortal rest from cares;
Affuage the terrours of the throne of Jove;
And quench the formidable thunderbolt

Of unrelenting fire. With flacken'd wings,
While now the folemn concert breathes around,
Incumbent o'er the fceptre of his lord
Sleeps the ftern eagle; by the number'd notes,
Poffefs'd; and fatiate with the melting tone:
Sovereign of birds. The furious God of war,
His darts forgetting and the rapid wheels

That bear him vengeful o'er the embattled plain,
Relents, and fooths his own fierce heart to ease,
Unwonted ease. The fire of Gods and men,
In that great moment of divine delight,
Looks down on all that live; and whatsoe'er
He loves not, o'er the peopled earth and o'er
The interminated ocean, he beholds

Curs'd with abhorrence by his doom severe,
And troubled at the found. Ye, Naiads, ye
With ravish'd ears the melody attend
Worthy of facred filence. But the flaves
Of Bacchus with tempeftuous clamours strive
To drown the heavenly ftrains; of highest Jove,
Irreverent; and by mad prefumption fir'd
Their own difcordant raptures to advance
With hostile emulation. Down they rush
From Nyfa's vine-impurpled cliff, the dames
Of Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fauns,
With old Silenus, through the midnight gloom
Toffing the torch impure, and high in air
The brandish'd Thyrfus, to the Phrygian pipe's
Shrill voice, and to the clashing cymbals, mix'd
With fhrieks and frantic uproar. May the Gods
From every unpolluted ear avert