First in these fields I try the sylvan strains,[2]
Nor blush to sport on Windsor's blissful plains:[3]
Fair Thames, flow gently from thy sacred spring,[4]
While on thy banks Sicilian[5] muses sing;
Let vernal airs through trembling osiers play,[6] 5
And Albion's cliffs resound the rural lay.[7]
You, that too wise for pride, too good for pow'r,[8]
Enjoy the glory to be great no more,
And carrying with you all the world can boast,[9]
To all the world illustriously are lost! 10
O let my muse her slender reed inspire,
Till in your native shades[10] you tune the lyre:
So when the nightingale to rest removes,
The thrush may chant to the forsaken groves,[11]
But, charmed to silence, listens while she sings, 15
And all th' aerial audience clap their wings.[12]
Soon as the flocks shook off the nightly dews,[13]
Two swains, whom love kept wakeful, and the muse,
Poured o'er the whit'ning[14] vale their fleecy care,
Fresh as the morn, and as the season fair:[15] 20
The dawn now blushing on the mountain's side,
Thus Daphnis spoke, and Strephon thus replied.[16]