The various fields, and notes their sev’ral hues;

Or, all at ease, beguiles his hours away,

Whilst with his reed he tunes some past’ral lay.

Vines, curling o’er him, shade the verdant ground,

And rip’ning clusters hang luxurious round.

For him fair flocks their copious udders yield,

And fruitful Pales lives in ev’ry field;

He too has groves; and in the vales below

From cooling grots each day new fountains flow.

Who knows more joy than he, retir’d who lives,

And blest with all approving conscience gives;

Far, far away from war’s ensanguin’d plain,

And direful contests midst the raging main?

’Gainst no rude warrior, fierce in arms, he toils,

For splendid trophies, or for sacred spoils.

For him their sweets Panchaean odors yield,

With ev’ry flow’r that decks the fragrant field;

Pan he reveres, invokes for ev’ry good,

Pan guards the cot, and dwells in ev’ry wood.

Delicious ease is thine, ah, happy swain,

With fair content and all her careless train;

Thrice blest indeed, thou know’st no greater wealth

Than gentle slumber, competence and health.

Hail flocks! and groves where gentle breezes swell!

And shady vales where Hamadryads dwell!

Amidst your joys contented shepherds lie,

And lose their hours in rival poesy.

Beside his crook the musing shepherd lay,

And with his reed chas’d summer’s cares away:

Bright Phoebus now his middle course had run,

And on each ocean pour’d the burning sun.

Now rose the swain, his flocks before him go,

By mossy banks where murm’ring streamlets flow;

Their thirst appeas’d, they seek the flow’ry glade,

Where Dian’s beeches form a cooling shade.

Here once Agave, Cadmus’ daughter, fled

Her children’s anger, for their father dead.

And here full oft the bristly Fauns are seen

With troops of Satyrs sporting on the green;

Here with the rest appear the Naiad train,

And dancing Dryads skim along the plain.

Such feats were these, that streamlets ceased to glide,

Ev’n wond’ring Peneus curb’d his rolling tide.

A sight more strange than when, at Orpheus’ lyre,

Swift Hebrus stops and dancing groves admire.

But, weary with the toil, full oft they rove,

Where various foliage forms a cooling grove;

Here, first of all, where most the vale descends,

The lofty plane its length of shade extends.

Here too the Lotus holds her impious reign,

Whose potent charms beguil’d Ulisses’ train.

Here poplars sigh, in whose sad semblance grow

The sister Heliads, on the banks of Po;

Still, still their sorrows float in ev’ry gale,

And amber tears a brother’s fate bewail.

With these the tree, in whose green branches drest,

The constant Phyllis mourns her faithless guest.

Here sacred oaks the will of fate reveal’d

Ere golden Ceres turn’d the fruitful field;

These mighty monarchs tow’r’d above the plain,

Till Celeus’ son usurp’d their wide domain.