Note 39 — WINTER:[1]
Reading edition
The four opening lines of the speech of Lycidas were as follows in the MS.:
Thy songs, dear Thyrsis, more delight my mind Than the soft whisper of the breathing wind, Or whisp'ring groves, when some expiring breeze Pants on the leaves, and trembles in the trees.
The first couplet of the original reading, and the phrase "trembles in the trees," in the second couplet, were from Dryden's Virg. Ecl. v. 128:
Not the soft whispers of the southern wind, That play through trembling trees, delight me more.