[Page 132]

The Gratefull Shepheard.

1 WHilst by his grazing Flock a gentle Swain,
2 His Vacant Hours to entertain,
3 Perus'd a Volumn whose each Tragick Page
4 Discours'd of some Intrigue of State,
5 Of Rebell-Insolence and Rage,
6 And some unhappy Monarch's Fate:
7 The Youth into these passionate sounds brake forth
8 What Virtue of my Ancestours
9 So much Oblig'd you ye indulgent Pow'rs,
10 That in these Silent shades you gave me Birth?
11 You might have made me Fortune's Sport,
12 Doom'd me to some Corrupted Court,
[Page 133]
13 Where I this rurall Bliss had never known;
14 My Cottage might have been a Throne,
15 My Crook a Scepter, and my Wreath a Grown:
16 Some Tyrant-Prince I might have been,
17 (By your Indulgence now a peacefull Swain)
18 My Chloris some proud Cruel Queen,
19 The tendrest Nymph of the Arcadian Plain.
20 When for these Blessings I forget t' invoke
21 Your Powers, neglect to make your Altars smoak;
22 Then Ravisht let me be
23 From this Secure Retreat,
24 And plac't aloft on Grandieur's Seat,
25 An open Mark to the sure Darts of envious Destinie.

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Title (in Source Edition): The Gratefull Shepheard.
Author: Nahum Tate
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Tate, Nahum, c. 1652-1715. Poems by N. Tate. London: Printed by T.M. for Benj. Tooke ..., 1677, pp. 132-133. [15],133p. (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [Harding C 2953].)

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