Classic Poem

MELIBAEUS
How Tit'rus you supine and careless laid
Play on your pipe beneath this beechen shade,
While wretched we about the world must roam
And leave our pleasing fields and native home,
Here at your ease you sing your amorous flame
And the wood rings with Amerillis name.

TITYRUS
Those blessings, friend, a deity bestow'd
For I shall never think him less than God.
Oft on his alter shall my firstlings lye;
Their blood the consecrated stones shall dye:
He gave my flocks to graze the flowery meads
And me to tune at ease the unequall reeds.

MELIBAEUS
My admiration only I expres'd
(No spark of envy harbours in my breast)
That when confusion o'er the country reigns
To you alone this happy state remains.
Here I tho' faint myself must drive my goats
Far from their antient fields and humble cots.
This scarce I lead who left on yonder rock
Two tender kids the hopes of all the flock.
Had we not been perverse and careless grown
This dire event by omens was foreshown;
Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke
And lefthand crows from an old hollow oak
Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak.