English

IDYLL XXVI

The B ACCHANALS

A GAVÈ of the vermeil-tinted cheek
And Ino and Autonoä marshalled erst
Three bands of revellers under one hill peak
They plucked the wild oak's matted foliage first,
Lush ivy then, and creeping asphodel;
And reared therewith twelve shrines amid the untrodden fell:

To Semele three, to Dionysus nine

IDYLL XXV

H ERACLES THE Lion S LAYER

T O whom thus spake the herdsman of the herd,
Pausing a moment from his handiwork:
" Friend, I will solve thy questions, for I fear
The angry looks of Hermes of the roads.
No dweller in the skies is wroth as he,
With him who saith the asking traveller nay.

" The flocks Augeas owns, our gracious lord,
One pasture pastures not, nor one fence bounds

IDYLL XXIV

The I NFANT H ERACLES

A LCMENA once had washed and given the breast
To Heracles, a babe of ten months old,
And Iphicles his junior by a night;
And cradled both within a brazen shield,
A gorgeous trophy, which Amphitryon erst
Had stript from Prereläus fall'n in fight.
She stroked their baby brows, and thus she said:

" Sleep, children mine, a light luxurious sleep,
Brother with brother: sleep, my boys, my life:

IDYLL XXIII

Love A VENGED

A LAD deep dipt in passion pined for one
Whose mood was froward as her face was fair
Lovers she loathed, for tenderness she had none:
Ne'er knew what Love was like, nor how he bare
A bow, and arrows to make young maids smart:
Proof to all speech, all access, seemed her heart.

So he found naught his furnace to allay;
No quiver of lips, no lighting of kind eyes,

IDYLL XXII

The S ONS OF L EDA

The pair I sing, that Ægis armed Zeus
Gave unto Leda; Castor and the dread
Of bruisers Polydeuces, whensoe'er
His harnessed hands were lifted for the fray
Twice and again I sing the manly sons
Of Leda, those Twin Brethren, Sparta's own:
Who shield the soldier on the deadly scarp,
The horse wild plunging o'er the crimson field,
The ship that, disregarding in her pride
Star set and star rise, meets disastrous gales: —

IDYLL XX

Town AND C OUNTRY

O NCE I would kiss Eunice. " Back, " quoth she,
And screamed and stormed; " a sorry clown kiss me?
Your country compliments, I like not such;
No lips but gentles' would I deign to touch
Ne'er dream of kissing me: alike I shun
Your face, your language, and your tigerish fun
How winning are your tones, how fine your air!
Your beard how silken and how sweet your hair!
Pah! you've a sick man's lips, a blackamoor's hand:

IDYLL XIX

Love S TEALING H ONEY

O NCE thievish Love the honeyed hives would rob,
When a bee stung him: soon he felt a throb
Through all his finger tips, and, wild with pain,
Blew on his hands and stamped and jumped in vain.
To Aphrodite then he told his woe:
" How can a thing so tiny hurt one so?"
She smiled and said: " Why, thou'rt a tiny thing,
As is the bee; yet sorely thou canst sting"

IDYLL XVIII

The B RIDAI OF H ELEN

W HILOM , in Lacedaemon,
Tript many a maiden fair
To gold tressed Menelaus' halls,
With hyacinths in her hair:
Twelve to the Painted Chamber,
The queenliest in the land,
The clustered loveliness of Greece,
Came dancing hand in hand.
For Helen, Tyndarus' daughter,
Had just been wooed and won,

IDYLL XVII

The P RAISE OF P TOLEMY

W ITH Zeus begin, sweet sisters, end with Zeus,
When ye would sing the sovereign of the skies:
But first among mankind rank Ptolemy;
First, last, and midmost; being past compare
Those mighty ones of old, half men half gods,
Wrought deeds that shine in many a subtle strain;
I, no unpractised minstrel, sing but him;
Divinest ears disdain not minstrelsy
But as a woodman sees green Ida rise
Pine above pine, and ponders which to fell

IDYLL XVI

The V ALUE OF S ONG

W HAT fires the Muse's, what the minstrel's lays?
Hers some immortal's, ours some hero's praise,
Heaven is her theme, as heavenly was her birth:
We, of earth earthy, sing the sons of earth
Yet who, of all that see the gray morn rise,
Lifts not his latch and hails with eager eyes
My Songs, yet sends them guerdonless away?
Barefoot and angry homeward journey they,
Taunt him who sent them on that idle quest,