When such a day, blessed the Arcadian plain,
Warm without Sun, and shady without rain,
Fann’d by an air, that scarcely bent the flowers,
Or wav’d the woodbines, on the summer bowers,
The Nymphs disorder’d beauty could not fear,
Nor ruffling winds uncurld the Shepherd’s hair,
On the fresh grass, they trod their measures light,
And a long Evening made, from noon, to night.
Come then my Dafnis, from those cares descend
Which better may the winter season spend.
Come, and the pleasures of the fields, survey,
And through the groves, with your Ardelia stray.
Reading the softest Poetry, refuse,
To view the subjects of each rural muse;
Nor let the busy compasses go round,
When faery Circles better mark the ground.
Rich Colours on the Vellum cease to lay,
When ev’ry lawn much nobler can display,
When on the dazzling poppy may be seen
A glowing red, exceeding your carmine;
And for the blew that o’re the Sea is borne,
A brighter rises in our standing corn.
Come then, my Dafnis, and the fields survey,
And through the groves, with your Ardelia stray.
Come, and let Sansons World, no more engage,
Although he gives a Kingdom in a page;
O’re all the Universe his lines may go,
And not a clime, like temp’rate Britain show,
Come then, my Dafnis, and her fields survey,
And through the groves, with your Ardelia stray.
Nor plead that you’re immur’d, and cannot yield,
That mighty Bastions keep you from the field,
Think not tho’ lodg’d in Mons, or in Namur,
You’re from my dangerous attacks secure.
No, Louis shall his falling Conquests fear,
When by succeeding Couriers he shall hear
Apollo, and the Muses, are drawn down,
To storm each fort, and take in ev’ry Town.
Vauban, the Orphean Lyre, to mind shall call,
That drew the stones to the old Theban Wall,
And make no doubt, if itt against him play,
They, from his works, will fly as fast away,
Which to prevent, he shall to peace persuade,
Of strong, confederate Syllables, afraid.
Come then, my Dafnis, and the fields survey,
And through the Groves, with your Ardelia stray.
Come, and attend, how as we walk along,
Each cheerful bird, shall treat us with a song,
Not such as Fopps compose, where wit, nor art,
Nor plainer Nature, ever bear a part;
The Crystal springs, shall murmur as we pass,
But not like Courtiers, sinking to disgrace;
Nor, shall the louder Rivers, in their fall,
Like unpaid Saylers, or hoarse Pleaders brawl;
But all shall form a concert to delight,
And all to peace, and all to love invite.
Come then, my Dafnis, and the fields survey,
And through the Groves, with your Ardelia stray.
As Baucis and Philemon spent their lives,
Of husbands he, the happiest she, of wives,
When through the painted meads, their way they sought,
Harmlesse in act, and unperplext in thought,
Let us my Dafnis, rural joys persue,
And Courts, or Camps, not ev’n in fancy view.
So, let us through the Groves, my Dafnis stray,
And so, the pleasures of the fields, survey.

by Anne Finch (1661-1720)

A Nymph and swain, Sheelah and Dermot hight;
Who wont to weed the court of Gosford knight;
While each with stubbed knife removed the roots,
That raised between the stones their daily shoots;

As at their work they sate in counterview,
With mutual beauty smit, their passion grew.
Sing, heavenly Muse, in sweetly flowing strain,
The soft endearments of the nymph and swain.

DERMOT

My love to Sheelah is more firmly fixt,
Than strongest weeds that grow those stones betwixt;
My spud these nettles from the stones can part;
No knife so keen to weed thee from my heart.

SHEELAH

My love for gentle Dermot faster grows,
Than yon tall dock that rises to thy nose.
Cut down the dock, ’twill sprout again; but, O!
Love rooted out, again will never grow.

DERMOT

No more that brier thy tender leg shall rake:
(I spare the thistles for Sir Arthur’s sake)
Sharp are the stones; take thou this rushy mat;
The hardest bum will bruise with sitting squat.

SHEELAH

Thy breeches, torn behind, stand gaping wide;
This petticoat shall save thy dear backside;
Nor need I blush; although you feel it wet,
Dermot, I vow, ’tis nothing else but sweat.

DERMOT

At an old stubborn root I chanced to tug,
When the Dean threw me this tobacco-plug;
A longer ha’p’orth never did I see;
This, dearest Sheelah, thou shall share with me.

SHEELAH

In at the pantry door, this morn I slipt,
And from the shelf a charming crust I whipt:
Dennis was out, and I got hither safe;
And thou, my dear, shall have the bigger half.

DERMOT

When you saw Tady at long bullets play,
You sate and loused him all a sunshine day:
How could you, Sheelah, listen to his tales,
Or crack such lice as his between your nails?

SHEELAH

When you with Oonah stood behind a ditch,
I peep’d, and saw you kiss the dirty bitch;
Dermot, how could you touch these nasty sluts?
I almost wish’d this spud were in your guts.

DERMOT

If Oonah once I kiss’d, forbear to chide;
Her aunt’s my gossip by my father’s side:
But, if I ever touch her lips again,
May I be doom’d for life to weed in rain!

SHEELAH

Dermot, I swear, though Tady’s locks could hold
Ten thousand lice, and every louse was gold;
Him on my lap you never more shall see;
Or may I lose my weeding knife—and thee!

DERMOT

O, could I earn for thee, my lovely lass,
A pair of brogues to bear thee dry to mass!
But see, where Norah with the sowins comes—
Then let us rise, and rest our weary bums.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

A simple life that shepherd leads
On Mountains tops or flowry meads
Nor from his mole-hill dares aspire
Majestick beauty to admire
But to the village come at night
Some milk-maid proves his low delight

[…]

Then let me hear no more of Swains
Those rustick saunterers on the plains
Who ne’er had Pastoral or reed
But what from Poets did proceed

extract from:

To the Right Honorable the Lord Viscount Hatton by Way of Excuse for My Having Not in Sometime Replied to His Last Copy of Verses in Which He Gives Himself the Name of Corydon Not Approved by Me Who in This Poem Offer at an Imitation of Madame Deshouliers in Her Way of Badinage

A Pastoral Dialogue Between Two Shepherdesses

[Silvia] Pretty Nymph! within this Shade,
Whilst the Flocks to rest are laid,
Whilst the World dissolves in Heat,
Take this cool, and flow’ry Seat:
And with pleasing Talk awhile
Let us two the Time beguile;
Tho’ thou here no Shepherd see,
To encline his humble Knee,
Or with melancholy Lays
Sing thy dangerous Beauty’s Praise.
[Dorinda] Nymph! with thee I here wou’d stay,
But have heard, that on this Day,
Near those Beeches, scarce in view,
All the Swains some Mirth pursue:
To whose meeting now I haste.
Solitude do’s Life but waste.
[Silvia] Prithee, but a Moment stay.
[Dorinda] No! my Chaplet wou’d decay;
Ev’ry drooping Flow’r wou’d mourn,
And wrong the Face, they shou’d adorn.
[Silvia] I can tell thee, tho’ so Fair,
And dress’d with all that rural Care,
Most of the admiring Swains
Will be absent from the Plains.
Gay Sylvander in the Dance
Meeting with a shrew’d Mischance,
To his Cabin’s now confin’d
By Mopsus, who the Strain did bind:
Damon through the Woods do’s stray,
Where his Kids have lost their way:
Young Narcissus iv’ry Brow
Rac’d by a malicious Bough,
Keeps the girlish Boy from sight,
Till Time shall do his Beauty right.
[Dorinda] Where’s Alexis?
[Silvia] -He, alas!
Lies extended on the Grass;
Tears his Garland, raves, despairs,
Mirth and Harmony forswears;
Since he was this Morning shown,
That Delia must not be his Own.
[Dorinda] Foolish Swain! such Love to place.
[Silvia] On any but Dorinda’s Face.
[Dorinda] Hasty Nymph! I said not so.
[Silvia] No-but I thy Meaning know.
Ev’ry Shepherd thou wou’d’st have
Not thy Lover, but thy Slave;
To encrease thy captive Train,
Never to be lov’d again.
But, since all are now away,
Prithee, but a Moment stay.
[Dorinda] No; the Strangers, from the Vale,
Sure will not this Meeting fail;
Graceful one, the other Fair.
He too, with the pensive Air,
Told me, ere he came this way
He was wont to look more Gay.
[Silvia] See! how Pride thy Heart inclines
To think, for Thee that Shepherd pines;
When those Words, that reach’d thy Ear,
Chloe was design’d to hear;
Chloe, who did near thee stand,
And his more speaking Looks command.
[Dorinda] Now thy Envy makes me smile.
That indeed were worth his while:
Chloe next thyself decay’d,
And no more a courted Maid.
[Silvia] Next myself! Young Nymph, forbear.
Still the Swains allow me Fair,
Tho’ not what I was that Day,
When Colon bore the Prize away;
When-
[Dorinda] -Oh, hold! that Tale will last,
Till all the Evening Sports are past;
Till no Streak of Light is seen,
Nor Footstep prints the flow’ry Green.
What thou wert, I need not know,
What I am, must haste to show.
Only this I now discern
From the things, thou’d’st have me learn,
That Woman-kind’s peculiar Joys
From past, or present Beauties rise.

by Anne Finch (1661-1720)

It is by rules like these that we ought to judge of Pastoral. And since the instructions given for any art are to be delivered as that art is in perfection, they must of necessity be derived from those in whom it is acknowledged so to be. It is therefore from the practice of Theocritus and Virgil (the only undisputed authors of Pastoral) that the critics have drawn the foregoing notions concerning it.

Theocritus excels all others in nature and simplicity. The subjects of his Idyllia are purely pastoral; but he is not so exact in his persons, having introduced reapers and fishermen as well as shepherds. He is apt to be too long in his descriptions, of which that of the cup in the first pastoral is a remarkable instance. In the manners he seems a little defective, for his swains are sometimes abusive and immodest, and perhaps too much inclining to rusticity; for instance, in his fourth and fifth Idyllia. But it is enough that all others learned their excellences from him, and that his dialect alone has a secret charm in it, which no other could ever attain.

Virgil, who copies Theocritus, refines upon his original; and, in all points where judgment is principally concerned, he is much superior to his master. Though some of his subjects are not pastoral in themselves, but only seem to be such, they have a wonderful variety in them, which the Greek was a stranger to. He exceeds him in regularity and brevity, and falls short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety of style; the first of which, perhaps, was the fault of his age, and the last of his language.

Among the moderns their success has been greatest who have most endeavoured to make these ancients their pattern. The most considerable genius appears in the famous Tasso, and our Spenser. Tasso, in his Aminta, has as far excelled all the pastoral writers, as in his Gierusalemme he has outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this piece seems to have been the original of a new sort of poem, the pastoral comedy, in Italy, it cannot so well be considered as a copy of the ancients. Spenser’s Calender, in Mr. Dryden’s opinion, is the most complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever since the time of Virgil Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few points: his eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the ancients; he is sometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of religion in a pastoral style, as the Mantuan had done before him; he has employed the lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old poets; his stanza is not still the same, nor always well chosen. This last may be the reason his expression is sometimes not concise enough; for the tetrastic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of four lines, which would have been more closely confined in the couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus himself; though, notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is certainly inferior in his dialect: for the Doric had its beauty and propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and frequent in the mouths of many of the greatest persons: whereas the old English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obsolete, or spoken only by people of the lowest condition. As there is a difference betwixt simplicity and rusticity, so the expression of simple thoughts should be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of a calendar to his eclogues is very beautiful; since by this, besides the general moral of innocence and simplicity, which is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human life to the several seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view changes and aspects. Yet the scrupulous division of his pastorals into months has obliged him either to repeat the same description, in other words, for three months together, or, when it was exhausted before, entirely to omit it; whence it comes to pass that some of his eclogues (as the sixth, eighth, and tenth for example) have nothing but their titles to distinguish them. The reason is evident, because the year has not that variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as it may every season.

Of the following eclogues I shall only say, that these four comprehend all the subjects which the critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow to be fit for Pastoral; that they have as much variety of description, in respect of the several seasons, as Spenser’s; that, in order to add to this variety, the several times of the day are observed, the rural employments in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or places proper to such employments, not without some regard to the several ages of man, and the different passions proper to each age.

But after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors; whose works, as I had leisure to study, so, I hope, I have not wanted care to imitate.

Discourse on Pastoral Poetry by Alexander Pope (1688–1744)