You know him; he is near you; point him out.
Shall I see glories beaming from his brow,
Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers?[68]
This emotion has a worthy cause, and is thus true and right. But now
hear the cold-hearted Pope say to a shepherd girl--
Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade;
Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade;
Your praise the birds shall chant in every grove,
And winds shall waft it to the powers above.
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain,
The wondering forests soon should dance again;
The moving mountains hear the powerful call,
And headlong streams hang, listening, in their fall.[69]
This is not, nor could it for a moment be mistaken for, the language
of passion. It is simple falsehood, uttered by hypocrisy; definite
absurdity, rooted in affectation, and coldly asserted in the teeth of
nature and fact. Passion will indeed go far in deceiving itself; but
it must be a strong passion, not the simple wish of a lover to tempt
his mistress to sing. Compare a very closely parallel passage in
Wordsworth, in which the lover has lost his mistress:--
Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid,
When thus his moan he made:--
"Oh, move, thou cottage, from behind yon oak,
Or let the ancient tree uprooted lie,
That in some other way yon smoke
May mount into the sky.
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