ous anthems sing,
Which to your children and the years to come
May speak of Daphnis, and be never dumb.
While prostrate I drop on his quiet urn
My tears, not gifts; and like the poor that mourn
With green but humble turfs, write o'er his hearse
For false, foul prose-men this fair truth in verse.

"Here Daphnis sleeps, and while the great watch goes
Of loud and restless Time, takes his repose.
Fame is but noise; all Learning but a thought;
Which one admires, another sets at nought,
Nature mocks both, and Wit still keeps ado:
But Death brings knowledge and assurance too."

_Menalcas._

Cast in your garlands! strew on all the flow'rs,
Which May with smiles or April feeds with show'rs,
Let this day's rites as steadfast as the sun
Keep pace with Time and through all ages run;
The public character and famous test
Of our long sorrows and his lasting rest.
And when we make procession on the plains,
Or yearly keep the holiday of swains,
Let Daphnis still be the recorded name,
And solemn honour of our feasts and fame.
For though the Isis and the prouder Thames
Can show his relics lodg'd hard by their streams:
And must for ever to the honour'd name
Of noble Murrey chiefly owe that fame:
Yet here his stars first saw him, and when Fate
Beckon'd him hence, it knew no other date.
Nor will these vocal woods and valleys fail,
Nor Isca's louder streams, this to bewail;
But while swains hope, and seasons change, will glide
With moving murmurs because Daphnis died.

_Damon._

A fatal sadness, such as still foregoes,
Then runs along with public plagues and woes,
Lies heavy on us; and the very light,
Turn'd mourner too, hath the dull looks of night.
Our vales, like those of death, a darkness show
More sad than cypress or the gloomy yew;
And on our hills, where health with height complied,
Thick drowsy mists hang round, and there reside.
Not one short parcel of the tedious year
In its old dress and beauty doth appear.
Flow'rs hate the spring, and with a sullen bend
Thrust down their heads, which to the root still tend.
And though the sun, like a cold lover, peeps
A little at them, still the day's-eye sleeps.
But when the Crab and Lion with acute
And active fires their sluggish heat recruit,
Our grass straight russets, and each