Scarce had sleep my eyes o’erspread, Ere Alecto sought my bed; In her left hand a torch she shook, And in her right led JOHN HORNE TOOKE. O thou! who well deserv’st the bays, Teach him, she cried, Sedition’s lays— She said, and left us; I, poor fool, Began the wily priest to school; Taught him how MOIRA sung of lights, Blown out by troops o’ stormy nights;[153] How ERSKINE, borne on rapture’s wings, At clubs and taverns sweetly sings Of _self_—while yawning Whigs attend— _Self_ first, last, midst, and without end;[154] How BEDFORD piped, ill-fated Bard;[155] Half-drown’d, in empty Palace-yard; How LANSDOWNE, nature’s simple child, At BOWOOD trills his wood-notes wild—[156] How these and more (a phrenzied choir) Sweep with bold hand Confusion’s lyre, Till madding crowds around them storm “FOR ONE GRAND RADICAL REFORM!” TOOKE stood silent for a while, Listening with sarcastic smile; Then in verse of calmest flow, Sung of treasons, deep and low, Of rapine, prisons, scaffolds, blood, Of war against the great and good; Of Venice, and of Genoa’s doom, And fall of unoffending Rome; Of monarchs from their station hurl’d, And one waste desolated world. Charm’d by the magic of his tongue, I lost the strains I lately sung, While those he taught, remain impress’d For ever on my faithful breast. DORUS. [BION. IDYLLIUM III. THE TEACHER TAUGHT. TRANSLATED BY FAWKES. As late I slumbering lay, before my sight Bright VENUS rose in visions of the night: She led young Cupid; as in thought profound His modest eyes were fixed upon the ground; And thus she spoke: “To thee, dear swain, I bring My little son; instruct the boy to sing”. No more she said; but vanished into air, And left the wily pupil to my care: I,—(sure I was an idiot for my pains), Began to teach him old bucolic strains; How PAN the pipe, how PALLAS formed the flute, PHŒBUS the lyre, and MERCURY the lute: LOVE, to my lessons quite regardless grown, Sang lighter lays, and sonnets of his own, Th’ amours of men below, and gods above, And all the triumphs of the queen of love. I, sure the simplest of all shepherd swains, Full soon forgot my old bucolic strains; The lighter lays of LOVE my fancy caught, And I remembered all that Cupid taught.—ED.]