- But independance: yet if thou, sweet maid,
- In health and virtue bloom; tho’ worse betide,
-
Thy smile will smoothe adversity’s rough brow. [550]
- IN Italy’s green bounds, the myrtle shoots
- A fragrant fence, and blossoms in the sun.
- Here, on the rockiest verge of these blest isles,
- With little care, the plant of love would grow. [555]
- Then to the citron join the plant of love,
-
And with their scent and shade enrich your isles.
- YET some pretend, and not unspecious they,
- The wood-nymphs foster the contagious blast.1
- Foes to the Dryads,2 they remorseless fell [560]
- Each shrub of shade, each tree of spreading root,
- That woo the first glad fannings of the breeze.
- Far from the muse be such inhuman thoughts;
- Far better recks3 she of the woodland tribes,
- Earth’s eldest birth, and earth’s best ornament. [565]
- Ask him, whom rude necessity compels
- To dare the noontide fervor, in this clime,
- Ah, most intensely hot; how much he longs
VER. 559. contagious blast.] So a particular species of blight is called in the West-Indies. See its description in the second book.