Page:The Poetical Works of Elijah Fenton (1779).djvu/28

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20
FLORELIO.
"A gentle fall may thy young beauties have,
"And golden slumbers wait thee in the grave:
"Yearly thy hearse with garlands we 'll adorn,
"And teach young nightingales for thee to mourn. 70
"Bees love the blooms, the flocks the bladed grain,
"Nor less wert thou belov'd by ev'ry swain.
"Come, Shepherds! come, perform the fun'ral due,
"For he was ever good and kind to you:
"On ev'ry smoothest beech, in ev'ry grove, 75
"In weeping characters record your love:
"And as in mem'ry of Adonis slain,
"When for the youth the Syrian maids complain,
"His river, to record the guilty day,
"With freshly bleeding purple stains the sea; 80
"So thou, dear Cam! contribute to our woe,
"And bid thy stream in plaintive murmurs flow;
"Thy head with thy own willow boughs adorn,
"And with thy tears supply the frugal urn.
“The swains their sheep, the nymphs shall leave the lawn;
"And yearly on their banks renew their moan: 86
“His mother, while they there lament, shall be
"The queen of Love, the lov'd Adonis he:
"On her, like Venus, all the Graces wait,
"And he too like Adonis in his fate! 90
"For fresh in fragrant youth he left the plain,
"And is the grief, who was the grace, of ev'ry British swain.
"No more the nymphs, that o'er the brooks preside,
"Dress their gay beauties by the crystal tide,