No More Learning

The drowsy power on whose smooth easy mien
The smiles of wonder and delight are seen,
Whose glossy, simp'ring eye bespeaks her name,
Credulity, attends the goddess Fame.
Fir'd by the heroes' praise, the wat'ry gods,[572]
With ardent speed forsake their deep abodes;
Their rage by vengeful Bacchus rais'd of late,
Now stung remorse, and love succeeds to hate.
Ah, where remorse in female bosom bleeds,
The tend'rest love in all its glow succeeds.
When fancy glows, how strong, O Love, thy power!
Nor slipp'd the eager god the happy hour;
Swift fly his arrows o'er the billowy main,
Wing'd with his fires, nor flies a shaft in vain:
Thus, ere the face the lover's breast inspires,
The voice of fame awakes the soft desires.
While from the bow-string start the shafts divine,
His ivory moon's wide horns incessant join,
Swift twinkling to the view: and wide he pours,
Omnipotent in love, his arrowy showers.
E'en Thetis' self confess'd the tender smart,
And pour'd the murmurs of the wounded heart:
Soft o'er the billows pants the am'rous sigh;
With wishful languor melting on each eye
The love-sick nymphs explore the tardy sails
That waft the heroes on the ling'ring gales.

Give way, ye lofty billows, low subside,
Smooth as the level plain, your swelling pride,
Lo, Venus comes! Oh, soft, ye surges, sleep,
Smooth be the bosom of the azure deep,
Lo, Venus comes! and in her vig'rous train
She brings the healing balm of love-sick pain.
White as her swans,[573] and stately as they rear
Their snowy crests when o'er the lake they steer,
Slow moving on, behold, the fleet appears,
And o'er the distant billow onward steers.
The beauteous Nereids, flush'd in all their charms,
Surround the goddess of the soft alarms:
Right to the isle she leads the smiling train,
And all her arts her balmy lips explain;
The fearful languor of the asking eye,
The lovely blush of yielding modesty,
The grieving look, the sigh, the fav'ring smile,
And all th' endearments of the open wile,
She taught the nymphs--in willing breasts that heav'd
To hear her lore, her lore the nymphs receiv'd.

As now triumphant to their native shore
Through the wide deep the joyful navy bore,
Earnest the pilot's eyes sought cape or bay,
For long was yet the various wat'ry way;
Sought cape or isle, from whence their boats might bring
The healthful bounty of the crystal spring:
When sudden, all in nature's pride array'd,
The Isle of Love its glowing breast display'd.
O'er the green bosom of the dewy lawn
Soft blazing flow'd the silver of the dawn,
The gentle waves the glowing lustre share,
Arabia's balm was sprinkled o'er the air.
Before the fleet, to catch the heroes' view,
The floating isle fair Acidalia drew:
Soon as the floating verdure caught their sight,[574]
She fix'd, unmov'd, the island of delight.
So when in child-birth of her Jove-sprung load,
The sylvan goddess and the bowyer god,
In friendly pity of Latona's woes,[575]
Amid the waves the Delian isle arose.
And now, led smoothly o'er the furrow'd tide,
Right to the isle of joy the vessels glide:
The bay they enter, where on ev'ry hand,
Around them clasps the flower-enamell'd land;
A safe retreat, where not a blast may shake
Its flutt'ring pinions o'er the stilly lake.
With purple shells, transfus'd as marble veins,
The yellow sands celestial Venus stains.
With graceful pride three hills of softest green
Rear their fair bosoms o'er the sylvan scene;
Their sides embroider'd boast the rich array
Of flow'ry shrubs in all the pride of May;
The purple lotus and the snowy thorn,
And yellow pod-flowers ev'ry slope adorn.
From the green summits of the leafy hills
Descend, with murm'ring lapse, three limpid rills:
Beneath the rose-trees loit'ring, slow they glide,
Now, tumbles o'er some rock their crystal pride;
Sonorous now, they roll adown the glade,
Now, plaintive tinkle in the secret shade,
Now, from the darkling grove, beneath the beam
Of ruddy morn, like melted silver stream,
Edging the painted margins of the bowers,
And breathing liquid freshness on the flowers.
Here, bright reflected in the pool below,
The vermeil apples tremble on the bough;
Where o'er the yellow sands the waters sleep
The primros'd banks, inverted, dew-drops weep;
Where murm'ring o'er the pebbles purls the stream
The silver trouts in playful curvings gleam.
Long thus, and various, ev'ry riv'let strays,
Till closing, now, their long meand'ring maze,
Where in a smiling vale the mountains end,
Form'd in a crystal lake the waters blend:[576]
Fring'd was the border with a woodland shade,
In ev'ry leaf of various green array'd,
Each yellow-ting'd, each mingling tint between
The dark ash-verdure and the silv'ry green.
The trees, now bending forward, slowly shake
Their lofty honours o'er the crystal lake;
Now, from the flood the graceful boughs retire
With coy reserve, and now again admire
Their various liv'ries, by the summer dress'd,
Smooth-gloss'd and soften'd in the mirror's breast.
So, by her glass the wishful virgin stays,
And, oft retiring, steals the ling'ring gaze.
A thousand boughs aloft to heav'n display
Their fragrant apples, shining to the day;
The orange here perfumes the buxom air,
And boasts the golden hue of Daphne's hair. [577]
Near to the ground each spreading bough descends,
Beneath her yellow load the citron bends;
The fragrant lemon scents the cooly grove;
Fair as (when rip'ning for the days of love)
The virgin's breasts the gentle swell avow,
So, the twin fruitage swell on every bough.
Wild forest-trees the mountain sides array'd
With curling foliage and romantic shade:
Here spreads the poplar, to Alcides dear;
And dear to Phoebus, ever verdant here,
The laurel joins the bowers for ever green,
The myrtle bowers belov'd of beauty's queen.
To Jove the oak his wide-spread branches rears;
And high to heav'n the fragrant cedar bears;
Where through the glades appear the cavern'd rocks,
The lofty pine-tree waves her sable locks;
Sacred to Cyb? l? the whisp'ring pine
Loves the wild grottoes where the white cliffs shine;
Here towers the cypress, preacher to the wise,
Less'ning from earth her spiral honours rise,
Till, as a spear-point rear'd, the topmost spray
Points to the Eden of eternal day.
Here round her fost'ring elm the smiling vine,
In fond embraces, gives her arms to twine,
The num'rous clusters pendant from the boughs,
The green here glistens, here the purple glows;
For, here the genial seasons of the year
Danc'd hand in hand, no place for winter here;
His grisly visage from the shore expell'd,
United sway the smiling seasons held.