Pagina:Le prose e poesie campestri....djvu/266

250 dissertazione

gliam dirlo. La descrizione di quello del Tasso, che fatta venne un secolo prima


    Upon the rapid current, wich through veins
    Of porous earth with Kindly thirst up drawn,
    Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
    Water’d the garden; thence united fell
    Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
    Which from his darksome passage now appears,
    And now divided into four main streams,
    Runs diverse, wand’ring many a famous realm
    And country, whereof here needs no account;
    But rather to tell how, if art could tell,
    How from that saphir fount the crisped brooks,
    Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
    With mazy error under pendent shades
    Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
    Flow’rs, whorthy of Paradise, which not nice art
    In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
    Pour’d forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
    Both where the morning-sun first warmly smote
    The open field, and where the unpierc’d shade
    Imbrown’d the noontide bow’rs. Thus was this place
    A happy rural seat of various views:
    Groves whose rich trees wept od’rous gums, and balm,
    Others whose fruit burnish’d with golden rind,
    Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
    If true, here only, and of delicious taste:
    Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
    Grazing the tender herb, were interpos’d,
    Or palmy hilloc; or the flow’ry lap
    Of some irrigous valley spread her store,