Listen to the Muse's lyre,
Master of the pencil's fire!
Sketched in painting's bold display,
Many a city first portray;
Many a city, revelling free,
Full of loose festivity.
Picture then a rosy train,
Bacchants straying o'er the plain;
Piping, as they roam along,
Roundelay or shepherd-song.
Paint me next, if painting may
Such a theme as this portray,
All the earthly heaven of love
These delighted mortals prove.
[1] La Fosse has thought proper to lengthen this poem by considerable
interpolations of his own, which he thinks are indispensably necessary to
the completion of the description.