bespoke our care, 5
And India poured her gaudy treasures here:
A various spoil adorned our naked land, }
The pride of Persia glittered on our strand, }
And China's earth was cast on common sand: }
Tossed up and down the glossy fragments lay, 10
And dressed the rocky shelves, and paved the painted bay.
Thy treasures next arrived: and now we boast
A nobler cargo on our barren coast:
From thy luxuriant Forest we receive
More lasting glories than the East can give. 15
Where'er we dip in thy delightful page,
What pompous scenes our busy thoughts engage!
The pompous scenes in all their pride appear,
Fresh in the page, as in the grove they were;
Nor half so true the fair Lodona shows 20
The sylvan state that on her border grows,
While she the wond'ring shepherd entertains
With a new Windsor in her wat'ry plains;
Thy juster lays the lucid wave surpass,
The living scene is in the muse's glass. 25
Nor sweeter notes the echoing forests cheer,
When Philomela sits and warbles there,
Than when you sing the greens and op'ning glades,
And give us harmony as well as shades:
A Titian's hand might draw the grove, but you 30
Can paint the grove, and add the music too.
With vast variety thy pages shine;
A new creation starts in ev'ry line.
How sudden trees rise to the reader's sight, }
And make a doubtful scene of shade and light, } 35
And give at once the day, at once the night! }
And here again what sweet confusion reigns,
In dreary deserts mixed with painted plains!
And see! the deserts cast a pleasing gloom,
And shrubby heaths rejoice in purple bloom: 40
Whilst fruitful crops rise by their barren side,
And bearded groves display their annual pride.
Happy the man, who strings his tuneful lyre,
Where woods, and brooks, and breathing fields inspire!
Thrice happy you! and worthy best to dwell 45
Amidst the rural joys you sing so well.
I in a cold, and in a barren clime, }
Cold as my thought, and barren as my rhyme, }
Here on the western beach attempt to chime. }
O joyless flood! O rough tempestu