Classic Poem

A PASTORAL

Now cease your sweet pipes, shepherds! cease your lays,
Ye warbling train, that fill the echoing groves
With your melodious love-notes! Die, ye winds,
That o'er Arcadian valleys blow! Ye streams,
Ye garrulous old streams, suspend your course,
And listen to Menaicas. —

MENALCAS.

Come, fairest of the beauteous train that sport
On Ladon's flowery side, my Delia, come!
For thee thy shepherd, silent as he sits
Within the green wood, sighs: for thee prepares
The various wreaths in vain; explores the shade
Where lowly lurks the violet blue, where droops,
In tender beauty, its fair spotted bells,
The cowslip: oft with plamtive voice he calls
The wakeful echo — What are streams or flowers,
Or songs of blithe birds? What the blushing rose,
Young health, or music, or the voice of praise,
The smile of vernal suns, the fragrant breath
Of evening gales, when Delia dwells afar?