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WINDSOR FOREST.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE LORD
LANSDOWN.

"Non injussa cano: Te nostræ, Vare, myricæ,
Te Nemus omne canet; nec Phoebo gratior ulla est,
Quam sibi quæ Vari præscripsit pagina nomen.

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Virg.

WINDSOR FOREST.'

HY forest, Windsor! and thy green

retreats,

At once the Monarch's and the
Muse's seats,

Invite my lays. Be present, sylvan maids!
Unlock your springs, and open all your shades.
Granville commands; your aid, O Muses, bring!
What Muse for Granville can refuse to sing? 6
The groves of Eden, vanished now so long,
Live in description, and look green in song:
These, were my breast inspired with equal flame,
Like them in beauty, should be like in fame. 10
Here hills and vales, the woodland and the
plain,

Here earth and water, seem to strive again; Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see,

15

And where, though all things differ, all agree. Here waving groves a chequered scene display, And part admit, and part exclude the day;

"This poem was written at two different times: the first part of it, which relates to the country, in the year 1704, at the same time with the Pastorals; the latter part was not added till the year 1713, in which it was published."-P.

20

As some coy nymph her lover's warm address
Nor quite indulges, nor can quite repress.
There, interspersed in lawns and opening glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each other's shades.
Here in full light the russet plains extend:
There wrapt in clouds the blueish hills ascend.
Ev'n the wild heath displays her purple dyes, 25
And 'midst the desert fruitful fields arise,
That crowned with tufted trees and springing

corn,

30

Like verdant isles the sable waste adorn.
Let India boast her plants, nor envy we
The weeping amber, or the balmy tree,
While by our oaks the precious loads are borne,
And realms commanded which those trees adorn.
Not proud Olympus yields a nobler sight,
Though gods assembled grace his towering
height,

34

Than what more humble mountains offer here,
Where, in their blessings, all those gods appear.
See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crowned,
Here blushing Flora paints the enamelled ground,
Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand,
And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand; 40
Rich Industry sits smiling on the plains,
And peace and plenty tell, a Stuart reigns.
Not thus the land appeared in ages past,
A dreary desert, and a gloomy waste,
To savage beasts and savage laws a prey,1
And kings more furious and severe than they ;
Who claimed the skies, dispeopled air and floods,
The lonely lords of empty wilds and woods:
Cities laid waste, they stormed the dens and

caves,

45

49

(For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves).

The Forest Laws. --P.

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What could be free, when lawless beasts obeyed,
And ev’n the elements a tyrant swayed?

In vain kind seasons swelled the teeming grain,
Soft showers distilled, and suns grew warm in

vain;

The swain with tears his frustrate labour yields,
And famished dies amidst his ripened fields. 56
What wonder then, a beast or subject slain
Were equal crimes in a despotic reign ?//rebeasts,
Both doomed alike, for sportive tyrants bled,
But while the subject starved, the beast was fed.
Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began, 61
A mighty hunter, and his prey was man:
Our haughty Norman boasts that barbarous

name,

And makes his trembling slaves the royal game.
The fields are ravished from the industrious

swains,

65

From men their cities, and from gods their fanes:1
The levelled towns with weeds lie covered o'er;
The hollow winds through naked temples roar;
Round broken columns clasping ivy twined;
O'er heaps of ruin stalked the stately hind; 70
The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires,
And savage howlings fill the sacred quires.
Awed by his nobles, by his commons cursed,
The oppressor ruled tyrannic where he durst,
Stretched o'er the poor and church his iron rod,
And served alike his vassals and his God. 76
Whom ev'n the Saxon spared, and bloody Dane,
The wanton victims of his sport remain.

Alluding to the destruction made in the New
Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I.
Translated from

“Templa adimit divis, fora civibus, arva colonis," an old monkish writer, I forget who.-P.

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