The Works of Alexander Pope Part 53

Where'er you tread your foot shall set The primrose and the violet.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 45: The six lines from ver. 71 to ver. 76 stood thus in the original ma.n.u.script:

Oh, deign to grace our happy rural seats, Our mossy fountains, and our green retreats; While you your presence to the groves deny, Our flowers are faded, and our brooks are dry; Though with'ring herbs lay dying on the plain, At your return they shall be green again.

The two last couplets were copied from Dryden's Virg. Ecl. vii. 77:

But if Alexis from our mountains fly, Ev'n running rivers leave their channels dry.

And ver. 81:

But, if returning Phyllis bless the plain, The gra.s.s revives, the woods are green again.

In Pope's next version, the four lines "While you, &c.," ran as follows:

Winds, where you walk, shall gently fan the glade,

Or,

Where'er you walk fresh gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade, Flow'rs where you tread in painted pride shall rise,

Or,

Where'er you tread the purple flow'rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes!

Walsh preferred the second form of the pa.s.sage to the original draught; and of the variations in the second form he preferred the lines beginning "Where'er you walk," and "Where'er you tread."]

[Footnote 46: He had in view Virg. Ecl. x. 43:

hic ipso tec.u.m consumerer aevo.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 47:

Your praise the tuneful birds to heav'n shall bear, And list'ning wolves grow milder as they hear.

So the verses were originally written. But the author, young as he was, soon found the absurdity which Spenser himself overlooked, of introducing wolves into England.--POPE.

There was no absurdity upon the principle of Pope, that the scene of pastorals was to be laid in the golden age, which could not be supposed to be subsequent to the reign of Edward I. when wolves still existed in this island. They lingered in Scotland in the reign of Charles II., and in Ireland in the reign of Queen Anne.]

[Footnote 48: Virg. Ecl. iii. 73:

Partem aliquam, venti, Divum referatis ad aures.--POPE.]

[Footnote 49: In place of this couplet and the next, the original MS.

had these lines:

Such magic music dwells within your name, The voice of Orpheus no such pow'r could claim; Had you then lived, when he the forests drew, The trees and Orpheus both had followed you.]

[Footnote 50: This verse is debased by the word _dance_. But he followed Dryden in Ecl. iii. 69:

Where Orpheus on his lyre laments his love, With beasts encompa.s.sed, and a dancing grove.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 51: Lucan vi. 473:

de rupe pependit Abscissa fixus torrens; amnisque cucurrit Non qua p.r.o.nus erat.

Streams have run back at murmurs of her tongue, And torrents from the rock suspended hung. Rowe.--STEEVENS.

"The line _And headlong streams_," says Ruffhead, "surely presents a new image and a bold one too." Bold indeed! Pope has carried the idea into extravagance when he makes the stream not only "listening," but "hang listening in its headlong fall." An idea of this sort will only bear just touching; the mind then does not perceive its violence; if it be brought before the eyes too minutely, it becomes almost ridiculous.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 52: In the MS.:

But see the southing sun displays his beams, See t.i.tyrus leads his herd to silver streams.]

[Footnote 53: Virg. Ecl. ii. 68:

Me tamen urit amor, quis enim modus adsit amori?--POPE.

He had Dryden's translation of the pa.s.sage in Virgil before him:

Cool breezes now the raging heats remove: Ah, cruel heav'n, that made no cure for love.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 54: The phrase "where his journey ends" is mean and prosaic, nor by any means adequately conveys the sentiment required, which is this,--The sun grows milder by degrees, and is at length extinguished in the ocean, but my flames know neither abatement nor intermission.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 55: Variation:

Me love inflames, nor will his fires allay.--POPE.]

[Footnote 56: This is certainly the poorest of Pope's pastorals, and it has many false thoughts and conceits. But the ingenuous and candid critic will always bear in mind the early age at which they were written, and the false taste of Cowley at that time prevalent.--BOWLES.]

AUTUMN:

THE THIRD PASTORAL,[1]

OR

HYLAS AND aeGON.

TO MR. WYCHERLEY.[2]

Beneath the shade a spreading beech displays,[3]

Hylas and aegon sung their rural lays; This mourned a faithless, that an absent love,[4]

And Delia's name and Doris' filled the grove.[5]

Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring; 5 Hylas and aegon's rural lays I sing.