For who have long'd, or who have labour'd more
To search the treasures of the Roman ftore;
Or dig in Grecian mines for purer ore?
The nobleft fruits transplanted in our ifle
With early hope and fragrant bloffoms fimile.
Familiar Ovid tender thoughts infpires,
And nature feconds all his foft defires:
Theocritus does now to us belong;
And Albion's rocks repeat his rural fong.
Who has not heard how Italy was bleft,
Above the Medes, above the wealthy East ?
Or Gallus' fong, fo tender and so true,
As ev'n Lycoris might with pity view!
When mourning nymphs attend their Daphnis' hearfe,
Who does not weep that reads the moving verfe!
But hear, oh hear, in what exalted strains
Sicilian Muses through these happy plains
Proclaim Saturnian times---our own Apollo reigns!
When France had breath'd, after inteftine broils,
And peace and conquest crown'd her foreign toils,
There (cultivated by a royal hand)
Learning grew fast, and spread, and bleft the land;
The choiceft books that Rome or Greece have known,
Her excellent tranflators made her own :
And Europe still confiderably gains,
Both by their good example and their pains.
From hence our generous emulation came,
We undertook, and we perform'd the fame.
But now, we fhew the world a nobler way,
And in tranflated verfe do more than they;