Imogen - A Pastoral Romance by William Godwin
page 51 of 146 (34%)
page 51 of 146 (34%)
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terrestrial passions. My condition appears attractive. I am surrounded
with riches and splendour; no man approaches me but with homage and flattery; every object of gratification solicits my acceptance. I am not only endowed with a capacity of obtaining all that I can wish, and that by supernatural means, but I am almost constantly forestalled in my wishes. Who would not say, that I am blessed? Who that heard but a description of my state, would not envy me? O ye shepherds, happy, thrice happy, in the confinedness of your prospects, ye would then envy me! Instructed as I am, instructed by too fatal experience, with reason I envy you. Hark to that swain who is now leading his flock from the durance in which they were held till the morning peeped over the eastern hills! The little lambs frisk about him, thankful for the liberty they have regained, and he stretches out his hand for them to lick. Now he drives them along the extended green, and in a wild and thoughtless note carols a lively lay. He sings perhaps of the kind, but bashful shepherdess. His hat is bound about with ribbon; the memorial of her coy compliance and much-prized favour. How light is his heart, how chearful his gait, and how gay his countenance! He leads in a string a little frolic goat with curving horns: I suppose the prize that he bore off in singing, which is not yet tamed to his hand, and familiarised to his flock. What though his coat be frieze? What though his labour constantly return with the returning day? I wear the attire of kings; far from labouring myself, thousands labour for my convenience. And yet he is happier than I. Envied simplicity; venerable ignorance; plenteous poverty! How gladly would I quit my sumptuous palace, and my magic arts, for the careless, airy, and unreflecting joys of rural simplicity!" It was in a late excursion of this kind that he had beheld the beauteous Imogen. His eye was struck with the charms of her person, and the amiableness of her manners. Never had he seen a complexion so |
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