Elegy XIX. - Written in Spring, 1743
Again the labouring hind inverts the soil;
Again the merchant ploughs the tumid wave;
Another spring renews the soldier's toil,
And finds me vacant in the rural cave.
As the soft lyre display'd my wonted loves,
The pensive pleasure and the tender pain,
The sordid Alpheus hurried through my groves,
Yet stopp'd to vent the dictates of disdain.
He glanced contemptuous o'er my ruin'd fold;
He blamed the graces of my favourite bower;
My breast, unsullied by the lust of gold;
My time, unlavish'd in pursuit of power.
Yes, Alpheus! fly the purer paths of Fate;
Abjure these scenes, from venal passions free;
Know, in this grove, I vow'd perpetual hate,
War, endless war, with lucre and with thee.
Here, nobly zealous, in my youthful hours,
I dress'd an altar to Thalia's name:
Here, as I crown'd the verdant shrine with flowers,
Soft on my labours stole the smiling dame.
'Damon,' she cried, 'if, pleased with honest praise,
Thou court success by virtue or by song,
Fly the false dictates of the venal race;
Fly the gross accents of the venal tongue.
'Swear that no lucre shall thy zeal betray;
Swerve not thy foot with fortune's votaries more;
Brand thou their lives, and brand their lifeless day-'
The winning phantom urged me, and I swore.
Forth from the rustic altar swift I stray'd;
'Aid my firm purpose, ye celestial Powers!
Aid me to quell the sordid breast,' I said;
And threw my javelin towards their hostile towers.
Think not regretful I survey the deed,
Or added years no more the zeal allow;
Still, still observant, to the grove I speed,
The shrine embellish, and repeat the vow.
Sworn from his cradle Rome's relentless foe,
Such generous hate the Punic champion bore;
Thy lake, O Thrasimene! beheld it glow,
And Cannae's walls and Trebia's crimson shore.
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poem by William Shenstone
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