Here you will find the Poem Ode - So dear my Lucio is to me of poet William Shenstone
So dear my Lucio is to me, So well our minds and tempers blend, That seasons may for ever flee, And ne'er divide me from my friend; But let the favour'd boy forbear To tempt with love my only fair. O Lycon! born when every Muse, When every Grace, benignant smiled, With all a parent's breast could choose To bless her loved, her only child; 'Tis thine, so richly graced, to prove More noble cares than cares of love. Together we from early youth Have trod the flowery tracks of time, Together mused in search of truth, O'er learned sage, or bard sublime; And well thy cultured breast I know, What wondrous treasure it can show! Come, then, resume thy charming lyre, And sing some patriot's worth sublime, Whilst I in fields of soft desire Consume my fair and fruitless prime; Whose reed aspires but to display The flame that burns me night and day. O come! the Dryads of the woods Shall daily soothe thy studious mind, The blue-eyed nymphs of yonder floods Shall meet and court thee to be kind; And Fame sits listening for thy lays To swell her trump with Lucio's praise. Like me, the plover fondly tries To lure the sportsman from her nest, And fluttering on with anxious cries, Too plainly shows her tortured breast; O let him, conscious of her care, Pity her pains, and learn to spare.
