Omnia vincit amor; et nos cedamus amori. Ec. x. 62.
But now again no more the woodland maids,
Nor pastoral songs delight--Farewell, ye shades--
No toils of ours the cruel god can change,
Tho' lost in frozen deserts we should range;
Tho' we should drink where chilling Hebrus flows,
Endure bleak winter blasts, and Thracian snows:
Or on hot India's plains our flocks should feed,
Where the parch'd elm declines his sickening head,
Beneath fierce-glowing Cancer's fiery beams,
Far from cool breezes and refreshing streams.
Love over all maintains resistless sway,
And let us love's all-conquering power obey. WARTON.
But notwithstanding the excellence of the tenth
pastoral, I cannot forbear to give the preference to
the first, which is equally natural and more diversified.
The complaint of the shepherd, who saw his old
companion at ease in the shade, while himself was
driving his little flock he knew not whither, is such
as, with variation of circumstances, misery always
utters at the sight of prosperity:
Nos patriae fines, et dulcia linquimus arva;
Nos patriam fugimus: Tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra
Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida sylvas.
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