Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds!

That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,

And listens to the herald of the sea

That came in Neptune's plea:

He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds,

What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain? And question'd every gust of rugged wings

That blows from off each beaked promontory:

They knew not of his story;

And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd;
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower, inscribed with woe. Ah! who hath reft, quoth he, my dearest pledge? Last came, and last did go,

The Pilot of the Galilean lake:

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain;

The golden opes, the iron shuts amain:

[swain,

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:
How well could I have spared for thee, young
Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning made,

Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest! [to hold
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how
A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! [sped;
What recks it them? What need they? They are
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw:
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed;
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Wrought inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing fed:
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks;
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,