Classic Poem

Silvia pretty nymph! within this shade,
Whilst the flocks to rest are laid,
Whilst the world dissolves in heat,
Take this cool and flowery seat,
And with pleasing talk awhile
Let us two the time beguile;
Though thou here no shepherd see,
To incline his humble knee,
Or with melancholy lays
Sing thy dangerous beauty's praise.

DORINDA Nymph! with thee I here would stay,
But have heard that, on this day,
Near those beeches, scarce in view,
All the swains some mirth pursue,
To whose meeting now I haste.
Solitude does life but waste.

SIL . Prithee, but a moment stay.

DOR . No! my chaplet would decay;
Every drooping flower would mourn,
And wrong the face they should adorn.

SIL . I can tell thee, though so fair,
And dressed with all that rural care,
Most of the admiring swains
Will be absent from the plains.
Gay Sylvander, in the dance
Meeting with a shrewd mischance,
To his cabin's now confined
By Mopsus, who the strain did bind;
Damon through the wood does stray,
Where his kids have lost their way;
Young Narcissus' ivory brow,
Rased by a malicious bough,
Keeps the girlish boy from sight,
Till time shall do his beauty right.

DOR . Where's Alexis?

SIL . He, alas!
Lies extended on the grass;
Tears his garland, raves, despairs,
Mirth and harmony forswears;
Since he was this morning shown
That Delia must not be his own.

DOR . Foolish swain! such love to place —

SIL . On any but Dorinda's face.

DOR . Hasty nymph! I said not so.

SIL . No — but I thy meaning know.
Every shepherd thou wouldst have
Not thy lover, but thy slave,
To increase thy captive train,
Never to be loved again.
But, since all are now away,
Prithee, but a moment stay.

DOR . No, the strangers from the vale
Sure will not this meeting fail:
Graceful one, the other fair.
He too with the pensive air
Told me, ere he came this way,
He was wont to look more gay.

SIL . See! how pride thy heart inclines
To think for thee that shepherd pines;
When those words, that reached thy ear,
Chloe was designed to hear;
Chloe, who did near thee stand,
And his more speaking looks command.

DOR . Now thy envy makes me smile.
That indeed were worth his while:
Chloe next thyself decayed,
And no more a courted maid.

SIL . Next myself! Young nymph, forbear.
Still the swains allow me fair,
Though not what I was that day,
When Colon bore the prize away;
When —

DOR . Oh, hold! that tale will last
Till all the evening sports are past;
Till no streak of light is seen,
Nor footstep prints the flowery green.
What thou wert, I need not know;
What I am, must haste to show.
Only this I now discern,
From the things thou'd'st have me learn,
" That woman-kind's peculiar joys
From past, or present, beauties arise."