Each traveller asks, with fond surprize,
Why Thyrsis wastes the fleeting year
Where gloomy forests round him rise,
And only rustics come to hear —
His taste is odd ( they seem to say )
Such talents in so poor a way!
To those that courts and titles please
How dismal is his lot;
Beyond the hills, beneath some trees,
To live — and be forgot —
In dull retreats, where Nature binds
Her mass of clay to vulgar minds.
While you lament his barren trade,
Tell me — in yonder vale
Why grows that flower beneath the shade,
So feeble and so pale!—
Why was she not in sun-shine placed
To blush and please your men of taste?
In lonely wilds, those flowers so fair
No curious step allure;
And chance, not choice, has placed them there,
( Still charming, tho’ obscure )
Where, heedless of such sweets so nigh,
The lazy hind goes loitering by.