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BOOK IX.

Wild forest trees the mountain fides array'd
With curling foliage and romantic shade:

Here spreads the poplar, to Alcides dear;

And dear to Phoebus, ever verdant here,
The laurel joins the bowers for ever green,
The myrtle bowers belov'd of beauty's queen.
To Jove the oak his wide-fpread branches rears;
And high to heaven the fragrant cedar bears;
Where through the glades appear the cavern'd rocks,
The lofty pine-tree waves her fable locks;

Sacred to Cybele the whispering pine

Loves the wild grottoes where the white cliffs fhine;
Here towers the cyprefs, preacher to the wife,
Lefs'ning from earth her spiral honours rife,
Till, as a spear-point rear'd, the topmost spray
Points to the Eden of eternal day.

Here round her foftering elm the smiling vine
In fond embraces gives her arms to twine;
The numerous clufters pendant from the boughs,
The green here gliftens, here the purple glows:
For here the genial seasons of the year
Danc'd hand in hand, no place for Winter here;
His grifly visage from the shore expell'd,
United fway the smiling seasons held.

Around the fwelling fruits of deepening red,
Their fnowy hues the fragrant blossoms spread;
Between the bursting buds of lucid green
The apple's ripe vermillion blush is feen;

For

For here each gift Pomona's hand bestows
In cultured garden, free, uncultured flows,
The flavour sweeter, and the hue more fair,
Than e'er was foster'd by the hand of care.
The cherry here in shining crimson glows;
And ftain'd with lover's blood, in pendant rows,
The bending boughs the mulberries o'erload;
The bending boughs carefs'd by zephyr nod.
The generous peach, that strengthens in exile
Far from his native earth, the Persian foil,
The velvet peach of fofteft gloffy blue,
Hangs by the pomgranate of orange hue,

Whofe open heart a brighter red difplays

Than that which fparkles in the ruby's blaze.

Here, trembling with their weight, the branches bear,
Delicious as profufe, the tapering pear.

For thee, fair fruit, the fongfters of the grove
With hungry bills from bower to arbour rove.

Ah, if ambitious thou wilt own the care
To grace the feaft of heroes and the fair,

And ftain'd with lover's blood, in pendant rows,
The bending boughs the mulberries o'erload;
Pyramus and Thisbe:

Arborei fœtus afpergine cædis in atram
Vertuntur faciem: madefactaque fanguine radix
Puniceo tingit pendentia mora colore. ...
At tu quo ramis arbor miferabile corpus
Nunc tegis unius, mox es tectura duorum;
Signa tene cædis: pullofque et luctibus aptos
Semper habe foetus gemini monumenta cruoris.

Soft

OVID. Met.

Soft let the leaves with grateful umbrage hide
The green-ting'd orange of thy mellow fide.

A thousand flowers of gold, of white and red

d

Far o'er the shadowy a vale their carpets spread,
Of fairer tapestry, and of richer bloom,

Than ever glow'd in Perfia's boasted loom :
As glittering rainbows o'er the verdure thrown,
O'er every woodland walk th' embroidery fhone.
Here o'er the watery mirror's lucid bed
Narciffus, felf-enamour'd, hangs the head;

1

And here, bedew'd with love's celestial tears,
The woe-markt flower of flain Adonis rears

Its purple head, prophetic of the reign
When loft Adonis fhall revive again.

e

d

At

The fhadowy vale-Literal from the original,- O fombrio valle, 1 which Fanfhaw however has tranflated, "the gloomy valley," and thus has given us a funereal, where the author intended a festive landscape. It must be confessed however, that the description of the island of Venus is infinitely the best part of all Fanfhaw's tranflation. And indeed the dullest prose translation might obscure, but could not poffibly throw a total eclipse over so admirable an original.

The woe-markt flower of flain Adonis-water'd by the tears of love-The Aenemone. "This, fays Caftera, is applicable to the celestial Venus, for "according to mythology, her amour with Adonis had nothing in it im66 pure, but was only the love which nature bears to the fun." The fables of antiquity have generally a threefold interpretation, an historical allusion, a physical and a metaphyfical allegory. In the latter view, the fable of Adonis is only applicable to the celestial Venus. A divine youth is outrageously flain, but shall revive again at the restoration of the golden age. Several nations, it is well known, under different names, celebrated the myfteries, or the death and refurrection of Adonis; among whom were the British druids, as we are told by Dr. Stukely. In the fame manner Cupid, in the fable of Pfyche, is interpreted by mythologists, to fignify the divine love weeping over the degeneracy of human nature.

At ftrife appear the lawns and purpled skies,

Which from each other ftole the beauteous f dyes:

The lawn in all Aurora's luftre glows,

Aurora fteals the blushes of the rose,

The rofe displays the blushes that adorn
The spotless virgin on the nuptial morn.
Zephyr and Flora emulous confpire

To breathe their graces o'er the field's attire;
The one gives healthful freshness, one the hue,
Fairer than e'er creative pencil drew.

Pale as the love-fick hopeless maid they dye
The modeft violet; from the curious eye
The modeft violet turns her gentle head,
And by the thorn weeps o'er her lowly bed,
Bending beneath the tears of pearly dawn
The fnow white lily glitters o'er the lawn;
Lo, from the bough reclines the damask rose,
And o'er the lily's milk-white bofom glows.

Fresh

At Arife appear the lawns and purpled skies, who from each other ftole the beauteous dyes. On this paffage Caftera has the following sensible though turgid note: "This thought, says he, is taken from the idyllium of Aufonius 66 on the rofe;

"Ambigeres raperetne rofis Aurora ruborem,

"An daret, & flores tingeret orta dies.

"Camoëns, who had a genius rich of itself, ftill farther enriched it at the "" expence of the ancients. Behold what makes great authors! those who "pretend to give us nothing but the fruits of their own growth, foon fail, "like the little rivulets which dry up in the fummer; very different rom "the floods, who receive in their courfe the tribute of an hundred and an "hundred rivers, and which even in the dog-days carry their waves trium"phant to the ocean."

Fresh in the dew far o'er the painted dales,
Each fragrant herb her fweetest scent exhales.
Thy hyacinth bewrays the doleful Ai,
And calls the tribute of Apollo's figh;

Still on its bloom the mournful flower retains
The lovely blue that dy'd the stripling's veins.
Pomona fired with rival envy views

The glaring pride of Flora's darling hues;
Where Flora bids the purple iris fpread,
She hangs the wilding's bloffom white and red;
Where wild thyme purples, where the daily fnows
The curving flopes, the melon's pride the throws;
Where by the stream the lily of the vale,

Primrose, and cowflip meek, perfume the gale,
Beneath the lily and the cowflip's bell
The fcarlet ftrawberries luxurious fwell.

Nor these alone the teeming Eden yields,
Each harmless beftial crops the flowery fields;
And birds of every note and every wing

Their loves responsive through the branches fing;

In

The hyacinth betrays the doleful Ai-Hyacinthus, a youth beloved of Apollo, by whom he was accidentally flain, and afterwards turned into a flower:

Tyrioque nitentior oftro

Flos oritur, formamque capit, quam lilia: fi non,

Purpureus color huic, argenteus effet in illis.

Non fatis hoc Phæbo eft: is enim fuit auctor honoris.

Ipfe fuos gemitus foliis infcribit; & Ai, Ai,

Flos habet infcriptum: funeftaque littera ducta eft. OVID. Met.

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