The while his tender offspring he convey'd, Through devious paths to that secure retreat; Where fage Pædia, with each tuneful maid, On a wide mount had fix'd her rural feat, 'Mid flowery gardens plac'd, untrod by vulgar feet.

Χ.

And now forth-pacing with his blooming heir,
And that fame virtuous palmer them to guide;
Arın'd all to point, and on a courser fair
Y-mounted high, in military pride,
His little train before he flow did ride.
Him eke behind a gentle squire * ensues,
With his young lord aye marching fide by side,
His counsellour and guard, in goodly † thews,

Who well had been brought up, and nurs'd by every

Mufe.

ΧΙ.

Thus as their pleasing journey they pursued, With chearful argument beguiling pain : Ere long descending from an hill they view'd Beneath their eyes out-stretch'd a spacious plain. That fruitful shew'd, and apt for every grain, For pastures, vines, and flowers; while Nature fair Sweet-smiling all around with countenance | fain Seem'd to demand the tiller's art and care, Her wildness to correct, her lavish waste repair.

XII. Right

* Enfues, follows. † Thews, manners. ‡ Fain, earnest, eager,

XII.

Right good, I ween, and bounteous was the foil,

Aye wont in happy season to repay

With tenfold ufury the peasant's toil.

But now 'twas ruin all, and wild decay;

Untill'd the garden and the fallow lay,

The sheep shorne down with barren * brakes o'er

grown

The whiles the merry peasants sport and play,

All as the public evil were unknown,

Or every public care from every breast was flown.

XIII.

Aftonish'd at a scene at once fo fair

And so deform'd; with wonder and delight At man's neglect, and Nature's bounty rare, In studious thought a while the Fairy Knight Bent on that goodly I lond his eager sight: Then forward rufh'd, impatient to descry What towns and castles there-in were § empight; For towns him feem'd, and castles he did spy, As to th' horizon round he stretch'd his roaming eye.

XIV.

Nor long way had they travell'd, ere they came To a wide stream, that with tumultuous roar Amongst rude rocks its winding course did frame. Black was the wave and fordid, cover'd o'er

With

* Brakes, briars.
+ Empight, placed.

† Lond, land.

With angry foam, and stain'd with infants' gore.
Thereto along th' unlovely margin stood
A birchen grove that, waving from the shore,
Aye cast upon the tide its falling bud,

And with its bitter juice empoison'd all the flood.

XV.

Right in the centre of the vale empight, Not diftant far a forked mountain rose; In outward form presenting to the fight That fam'd Parnassian hill, on whose fair brows The Nine Aonian Sisters wont repose; Liftening to sweet Castalia's founding stream, Which through the plains of Cirrha murmuring flows, But this to that compar'd mote justly seem Ne fitting haunt for gods, ne worthy man's esteem.

XVI.

For this nor founded deep, nor spredden wide,
Nor high up-rais'd above the level plain,
By toiling art through tedious years applied,
From various parts compil'd with studious pain,
Was * erst up-thrown.; if so it mote attain,
Like that poetic mountain, to be † hight
The noble feat of Learning's goodly train.
Thereto, the more to captivate the fight,
It like a garden fair most curioufly was ‡ dight.

U

XVII. En

* Erst, formerly, 1 Dight, dreft.

† Hight, called, named.

XVII.

In figur'd plots with leafy walls inclos'd,
By measure and by rule it was out-lay'd;
With fymmetry so regular dispos'd,
That plot to plot still answer'd, shade to shade;
Each correspondent twain alike array'd
With like embellishments of plants and flowers,
✓Of statues, vafes, spouting founts, that play'd
Through shells of Tritons their afcending showers,
And labyrinths involv'd, and trelice-woven bowers.

XVIII.

There likewife mote be seen on every fide
The yew obedient to the planter's will,
And shapely box of all their branching pride
Ungently shorne, and with preposterous skill
To various beasts and birds of fundry quill
Transform'd, and human shapes of monstrous size;
Huge as that giant-race, who, hill on hill
High-heaping, sought with impious vain * emprize,

Despite of thundering Jove, to scale the steepy skies.

XIX.

Alfe other wonders of the sportive shears
Fair Nature mif-adorning there were found :
Globes, spiral columns, pyramids and piers
With sprouting urns and budding statues crown'd;

* Emprize, enterprize, attempt.

And

i

And horizontal dials on the ground
In living box by cunning artists trac'd;
And gallies trim, on no long voyage bound,
But by their roots there ever anchor'd fast,

* All were their bellying fails out-spread to every blast.

xx.

O'er all appear'd the mountain's forked brows With terrasses on terrasses up-thrown; And all along arrang'd in order'd rows, And visto's broad, the velvet flopes adown The ever-verdant trees of Daphne shone. But, aliens to the clime, and brought of old From Latian plains, and Grecian Helicon, They fhrunk and languish'd in a foreign mold, By changeful Summers starv'd, and pinch'd by Win

ter's cold.

XXI.

Amid this verdant grove with folemn state,
On golden thrones of antique form reelin'd,
In mimic majesty Nine Virgins fate,
In features various, as unlike in mind:
Alfe boasted they themselves of heavenly kind,
And to the sweet Painassian Nymphs allied;
Thence round their brows the Delphic bay they twin'd,
And matching with high names their apish pride,

O'er every learned school aye claim'd they to prefide.

*

All, used frequently by the old English Poets for

although,