The round and ponderous world, bows down to thee; The earth, the ocean-tracts, the depths of heaven. Lo! nature revels in the coming age.

Oh! may the evening of my days last on,

May breath be mine, till I have told thy deeds! 60
Not Orpheus then, not Linus, shall outsing
Me: though each vaunts his mother or his sire,
Calliopea this, Apollo that.

Let Pan strive with me, Arcady his judge;
Pan, Arcady his judge, shall yield the palm.

Learn, tiny babe, to read a mother's smile:
Already ten long months have wearied her.
Learn, tiny babe. Him, who ne'er knew such smiles,
Nor god nor goddess bids to board or bed.

ECLOGUE V.

MENALCAS. MOPSUS.

Me. MOPSUS, suppose, now two good men have metYou at flute-blowing, as at verses I

We sit down here, where elm and hazel mix.

Mo. Menaloas, meet it is that I obey

Mine elder. Lead, or into shade-that shifts
At the wind's fancy-or (mayhap the best)
Into some cave. See here's a cave, o'er which
A wild vine flings her flimsy foliage.

Me. On these hills one-Amyntas-vies with you.
Mo. Suppose he thought to outsing Phoebus' self? 10
Me. Mopsus, begin. If aught you know of flames

Mo.

That Phyllis kindles; aught of Alcon's worth,
Or Codrus's ill-temper; then begin:
Tityrus meanwhile will watch the grazing kids.
Ay, I will sing the song which t'other day
On a green beech's bark I cut; and scored
The music, as I wrote. Hear that, and bid
Amyntas vie with me.

Me.

As willow lithe

Mo.

Yields to pale olive; as to crimson beds
Of roses yields the lowly lavender;
So, to my mind, Amyntas yields to you.

20

But, lad, no more: we are within the cave.

(Sings.) The Nymphs wept Daphnis, slain by ruthless death.

Ye, streams and hazels, were their witnesses: When, clasping tight her son's unhappy corpse, "Ruthless," the mother cried, "are gods and stars."

None to the cool brooks led in all those days,

Daphnis, his fed flocks: no four-footed thing
Stooped to the pool, or cropped the meadow-
grass.

How lions of the desert mourned thy death, 30
Forests and mountains wild proclaim aloud.
'Twas Daphnis taught mankind to yoke in cars
The tiger; lead the winegod's revel on,

And round the tough spear twine the bending

leaf.

Vines are the green wood's glory, grapes the

vine's :

The bull the cattle's, and the rich land's corn Thou art thy people's. When thou metst thy doom,

Both Pales and Apollo left our fields.

In furrows where we dropped big barley seeds,
Spring now rank darnel and the barren reed: 40
Not violet soft and shining daffodil,

But thistles rear themselves and sharp-spiked
thorn.

Shepherds, strow earth with leaves, and hang the springs

With darkness! Daphnis asks of you such

rites:

And raise a tomb, and place this rhyme thereon: "Famed in the green woods, famed beyond the skies,

A fair flock's fairer lord, here Daphnis lies."

Me. Welcome thy song to me, oh sacred bard,
As, to the weary, sleep upon the grass

As, in the summer-heat, a bubbling spring 50

Of sweetest water, that shall slake our thirst. In song, as on the pipe, thy master's match, Thou, gifted lad, shalt now our master be. Yet will I sing in turn, in my poor way, My song, and raise thy Daphnis to the stars— Raise Daphnis to the stars. He loved me too. Mo. Could aught in my eyes such a boon outweigh? Song-worthy was thy theme; and Stimichon

Told me long since of that same lay of thine. Me. (Sings.) Heaven's unfamiliar floor, and clouds

and stars,

бо

Fair Daphnis, wondering, sees beneath his feet.
Therefore gay revelries fill wood and field,
Pan, and the shepherds, and the Dryad maids.
Wolves plot not harm to sheep, nor nets to
deer;

Because kind Daphnis makes it holiday.

The unshorn mountains fling their jubilant voice
Up to the stars: the crags and copses shout
Aloud, "A god, Menalcas, lo! a god."
Oh! be thou kind and good unto thine own!
Behold four altars, Daphnis: two for thee, 70
Two, piled for Phoebus. Thereupon I'll place