A fourth time now our glebe for Ceres bears
The golden locks of harvest; Bacchus wears
Now the fourth season his bright vine-leaf crown,
Since, scant'ly hoar as yet with the soft down
Of her first plumage, in thy gentle breast
My young Muse dar'd to build herself a nest.
Here found she sun and shade and gentler heaven,
And what with these is by the Muses given
Were hers. Here sat she careless how the skies
Might darken, or the blasts of winter rise;
And here her voice reach'd thee, but by what move
Of fate I know not, only that thy love
Her voice did win; and now at length behold--
And ah, how much the child her arms enfold
Is like the mother!--she in tender years
The parent of a tender babe appears.
What lap, then, for this infant shall I find
Fitter than thine, or known by me so kind?
Yea, soon as she could speak, the wanton, she
Said, 'He shall be my guardian,' meaning thee;
And no ill forecast I would deem is this
Of Genius true and favouring deities,
That she so early should a sire divine
Always so open, always so benign.
Take, then, thine own--she is beneath thy wing--
And of this gift accept the offering.
So may Persuasion, who her fount has made
Upon thy lips, still pour from thence unstay'd
Her sacred honey; so be at the Court,
Whereto with plausive wreaths she doth resort,
No ears thy Siren move not; so, I pray,
No hindering bar thy Tagus strive to stay,
Or only such as erst thy stream has swept away. CL.