Page:The Works of Alexander Pope (1717).djvu/374
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338
The FIRST BOOK of
Fair was her face, and spotless was her mind,
Where filial love with virgin sweetness join'd.
Happy! and happy still she might have prov'd;
Were she less beautiful, or less belov'd!
But Phœbus lov'd, and on the flow'ry side
Of Nemea's stream, the yielding fair enjoy'd;
And e'er ten moons their orb with light adorn,
Th' illustrious off-spring of the God was born.
The nymph, her father's anger to evade,
Now flies from Argos to the sylvan shade,
To woods and wilds the pleasing burden bears,
And trusts her infant to a shepherd's cares.
How mean a fate, unhappy child! is thine?
Ah how unworthy those of race divine?
On flow'ry herbs in some green covert laid,
His bed the ground, his canopy the shade,
He mixes with the bleating lambs his cries;
While the rude swain his rural music tries,
To call soft slumbers on his infant eyes.
Where filial love with virgin sweetness join'd.
Happy! and happy still she might have prov'd;
Were she less beautiful, or less belov'd!
But Phœbus lov'd, and on the flow'ry side
Of Nemea's stream, the yielding fair enjoy'd;
And e'er ten moons their orb with light adorn,
Th' illustrious off-spring of the God was born.
The nymph, her father's anger to evade,
Now flies from Argos to the sylvan shade,
To woods and wilds the pleasing burden bears,
And trusts her infant to a shepherd's cares.
How mean a fate, unhappy child! is thine?
Ah how unworthy those of race divine?
On flow'ry herbs in some green covert laid,
His bed the ground, his canopy the shade,
He mixes with the bleating lambs his cries;
While the rude swain his rural music tries,
To call soft slumbers on his infant eyes.
Yet