None in those days their pastured oxen drove, And with soft leaves to enwreathe the limber spears. Upon the furrows, whereunto we oft Plump grains of barley have consigned, now grow For violet soft, for purple daffodil, Thistle and paliurus with sharp thorns 30 Spring up. Bestrew the ground with leaves, bring shades 40 50 With what sad accents, and what piercing cries, When, in her widow'd arms, devoid of breath, Past. 3. Line 32. So Spenser says of Dido's death: Sh. Cal. Nov. 133: "The feeble flockes in field refuse their former foode, And hang their heades as they would learne to weepe." 53. Instead of an inscription on Albino's tomb, Philips introduces Angelot praying: Hence even to the constellations famed, MENALCAS. Such is thy song to us, O heavenly bard, Still we these [strains] of ours, howe'er [we may], 60 "Oh! peaceful may thy gentle spirit rest! The flowery turf be light upon thy breast; Nor shrieking owl nor bat thy tomb fly round, Nor midnight goblins revel o'er the ground." Past. 3. Line 57. Sopor strictly means "deep sleep," but the Latin poets use it for "sleep" in general. In the same lax way, "slumber" is used by English poets to represent "sleep," though strictly it means "light sleep." Still, though there is so marked a difference between sopor and "slumber," yet as the poet does not seem to use the word here in the accurate signification attached to it in Æn. iii. 173, "slumber" may well be admitted, being far more harmonious in this passage than "sleep." The same liberty, if liberty it be, I have taken in rendering En. iv. 522. V. 45-47 are amplified by Spenser in his exquisite description of the "Bower of Bliss:" Faerie Queene, ii. 5, 30: "And fast beside there trickled softly downe A gentle streame, whose murmuring wave did play To lull him soft asleepe that by it lay: MOPSUS. Can any thing to us than such a boon Be greater? Both the swain was of himself MENALCAS. Bright Daphnis marvels at th' unwonted gate Fling forth; now do the very cliffs the lays, O be kind &c.: Line 71. So Spenser of Dido, in Sh. Cal. Nov. 175; see also 195, "She raignes a goddess now emong the saintes, "Now, free from earth, thy disencumber'd soul More directly imitated in Amyntas, 66-73; "Damon, behold yon breaking purple cloud; And gracious to thine own! Lo! altars four: MOPSUS. What [boons] to thee, what boons can I requite Line 83. Ara and altare are used of the same altar in Æn. ii. 514, 515. 106. Milton similarly in Par. Lost, viii. 5: "What thanks sufficient, or what recompense 108. "Colin, to heare thy rymes and roundelayes, For such a song? For neither me so much MENALCAS. We'll first present thee with this brittle reed. MOPSUS. But do thou Accept this crook, which, though he begged me oft, (And he was worthy then of being loved,) With even knobs and bronze, Menalcas, fair, 110 I more delight then larke in sommer dayes, A. Philips happily imitates verses 45-47, 81-84: Past. 4: How does thy verse subdue the listening ear! Soft falling as the still, refreshing dew, To slake the drought, and herbage to renew: Not half so sweet the midnight winds, which move In drowsy murmurs o'er the waving grove; Nor valley brook, that, hid by alders, speeds O'er pebbles warbling, and through whispering reeds; Nor dropping waters, which from rocks distil, And welly grots with tinkling echoes fill." This idea of the streams running through the rocky glens tempts me to quote one stanza from the fragment of a book of the Faerie Queene, in the two cantos of which Spenser puts forth transcendent poetical powers. He is describing an Irish river-nymph, whom he calls "Molanna, daughter of old father Mole:" "For first she springs out of two marble rocks, On which a grove of oakes high-mounted growes, |