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The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1, Poetry - Volume 1

Note 22 — SUMMER:

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Oft in the crystal spring I cast a view, And equalled Hylas, if the glass be true; But since those graces meet my eyes no more, shun, etc.

Virgil again (Ecl. ii. 25), from the Cyclops of Theocritus:

nuper me in littore vidi, Cum placidum ventis staret mare; non ego Daphnim, Judice te, metuam, si nunquam fallit imago.—Pope.

In his first version, which is closer to Virgil than the second, Pope had in his mind Dryden's translation, Ecl. ii. 33:

and if the glass be true, With Daphnis I may vie.

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