The filver eel, in shining volumes rollid,
The yellow carp, in scales bedrop'd with gold,
Swift trouts, diversify'd with crimson stains, 145
And pykes, the tyrants of the watry plains.

Now Cancer glows with Phæbus' fiery car :
The youth rush eager to the sylvan war,
Swarm o'er the lawns, the forest walks surround,
Rouze the fleet hart, and chear the opening hound.
Th’impatient courser pants in ev'ry vein, 151
And pawing, seems to beat the distant plain:
Hills, vales, and floods appear already cross’d,
And e'er he starts, a thousand steps are loft. 154
See the bold youth strain up

the threat'ning steep,
Rush thro' the thickets, down the valleys sweep,
Hang o'er their coursers heads with eager speed,
And earth rolls back beneath the flying steed.

IMITATIONS. Ver. 151. Th’ impatient courser, etc.] Translated from Sta. tius,

Stare adeo miferum eft, pereunt vestigia mille

Ante fugam, abfentemque ferit gravis ungula campum. These lines Mr. Dryden, in his preface to his translation of Frefnoy's Art of painting, calls wonderfully fine, and says " they " would cost him an hour, if he had the leifure to translate them, “ there is so much of beauty in the original;” which was the reason, I fuppose, why Mr. P. tried his strength with them.

Ver. 158. and earth rolls back] He has improved his original,

terræque urbesque recedunt. Virgi

Let old Arcadia boast her ample plain,
Th’immortal huntress, and her virgin-train; 160
Nor
envy,

Windsor! since thy shades have seen As bright a Goddess, and as chaste a Queen; Whose care, like hers, protects the sylvan reign, The Earth's fair light, and Empress of the Main.

Here too, 'tis sung, of old Diana stray'd, 165 And Cynthus' top forsook for Windsor shade; Here was the seen o'er airy wastes to rove, Seek the clear spring, or haunt the pathless grove; Here arm’d with silver bows, in early dawn, Her buskin’d Virgins trac'd the dewy lawn. 170

Above the rest a rural nymph was fam’d,
Thy offspring, Thames ! the fair Lodona nam'd;
(Lodona's fate, in long oblivion cast,
The Muse shall fing, and what she sings shall last.)
Scarce could the Goddess from her nymph be

known,
But by the crescent and the golden zone.
She scorn'd the praise of beauty, and the care ;
A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair ;

REM A R K S.
Ver. 162. Queen Anne.

IMITATIONS.

VER. 175.

Nec positu variare comas ; ubi fibula vestem,
Vitta coercuerat neglectos alba capillos.,

Ovid.

180

A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,
And with her dart the flying deer she wounds.
It chanc'd, as eager of the chace, the maid
Beyond the forest’s verdant limits stray'd,
Pan faw and lov'd, and burning with desire
Pursu'd her flight, her flight increas'd his fire.
Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly,
When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky;
Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves, 185
When thro’the clouds he drives the trembling doves;
As from the God she flew with furious

pace,
Or as the God, more furious, urg'd the chace.
Now fainting, finking, pale, the nymph appears;
Now close behind, his founding steps she hears;
And now his shadow reach'd her as she run, 191
His shadow lengthen’d by the setting fun;
And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,
Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair,

IMITATIONS.
VER. 183, 186.

Ut fugere accipitrem penna trepidante columbæ,
Ut solet accipiter trepidas agitare columbas.

Ovid. VER. 191, 194.

Sol erat a tergo : vidi præcedere longam
Ante pedes umbram : nisi si timor illa videbat,
Sed certe fonituque pedum terrebar; et ingens
Corrales vittas amabat anhelitus oris.

201

In vain on father Thames she calls for aid,

195 Nor could Diana help her injur'd maid. Faint, breathless, thus the pray’d, nor pray'd in vain; “ Ah Cynthia! ah--- tho'banish'd from thy train, “Let me, O let me, to the shades repair,

My native shades--there weep,and murmur there. She said, and melting as in tears she lay, In a soft, filver stream diffolv'd away. The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps, For ever murmurs, and for ever weeps; Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore, 205 And bathes the forest where she rang'd before. In her chaste current oft the Goddess laves, And with celestial tears augments the waves. Oft in her glass the musing shepherd spies The headlong mountains and the downward skies, The wat’ry landskip of the pendant woods, 211 And absent trees that tremble in the floods; In the clear azure gleam the flocks are seen, And floating forests paint the waves with green,

REMARKS,
VER. 205, Still bears the name The River Loddon.

Ver. 209. Oft in her glass, etc.] These fix lines were added after the first writing of this poem.

P.

Thro' the fair scene roll flow the ling'ring streams, Then foaming pour along,and rush into the Thames.

Thou too, great father of the British floods! With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods; : Where tow'ring oaks their growing honours rear, And future navies on thy shores appear,

220 Not Neptune's self from all her streams receives A wealthier tribute, than to thine he gives. No seas so rich, fo gay no banks appear, No lake fo gentle, and no spring so clear. Nor Po so swells the fabling Poet's lays, 225 While led along the skies his current strays, As thine, which visits Windsor's fam'd abodes, To grace the mansion of our earthly Gods : Nor all his stars above a lustre show, Like the bright beauties on thy banks below; 230 Where Jove, fubdu'd by mortal pafsion still, Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 233.

Happy the man, who to the shades retires,
But doubly happy, if the Muse inspires !
Blest whom the sweets of home-felt quiet please;
But far more blest, who study joins with ease.

Pa
VER. 231. It stood thus in the MS.

And force great Jove, if Jove's a lover still,
To change Olympus, etc.