Note 45 — SUMMER:
Reading edition
The six lines from ver. 71 to ver. 76 stood thus in the original manuscript:
Oh, deign to grace our happy rural seats, Our mossy fountains, and our green retreats; While you your presence to the groves deny, Our flowers are faded, and our brooks are dry; Though with'ring herbs lay dying on the plain, At your return they shall be green again.
The two last couplets were copied from Dryden's Virg. Ecl. vii. 77:
But if Alexis from our mountains fly, Ev'n running rivers leave their channels dry.
And ver. 81:
But, if returning Phyllis bless the plain, The grass revives, the woods are green again.
In Pope's next version, the four lines "While you, &c.," ran as follows:
Winds, where you walk, shall gently fan the glade,
Or,
Where'er you walk fresh gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade, Flow'rs where you tread in painted pride shall rise,
Or,
Where'er you tread the purple flow'rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes!
Walsh preferred the second form of the passage to the original draught; and of the variations in the second form he preferred the lines beginning "Where'er you walk," and "Where'er you tread."