ields the swallow forth had flown,
When she espied amid the woodlands lone
The nightingale, sweet songstress. Her lament
Was Itys to his doom untimely sent.
Each knew the other through the mournful strain,
Flew to embrace, and in sweet talk remain.
Then said the swallow, "Dearest, liv'st thou still?
Ne'er have I seen thee, since thy Thracian ill.
Some cruel fate hath ever come between;
Our virgin lives till now apart have been.
Come to the fields; revisit homes of men;
Come dwell with me, a comrade dear, again,
Where thou shalt charm the swains, no savage brood:
Dwell near men's haunts, and quit the open wood:
One roof, one chamber, sure, can house the two,
Or dost prefer the nightly frozen dew,
And day-god's heat? a wild-wood life and drear?
Come, clever songstress, to the light more near."
To whom the sweet-voiced nightingale replied:--
"Still on these lonesome ridges let me bide;
Nor seek to part me from the mountain glen:--
I shun, since Athens, man, and haunts of men;
To mix with them, their dwelling-place to view,
Stirs up old grief, and opens woes anew."

Some consolation for an evil lot
Lies in wise words, in song, in crowds forgot.
But sore the pang, when, where you once were great,
Again men see you, housed in mean estate.

THE HUSBANDMAN AND THE STORK

Thin nets a farmer o'er his furrows spread,
And caught the cranes that on his tillage fed;
And him a limping stork began to pray,
Who fell with them into the farmer's way:--
"I am no crane: I don't consume the grain:
That I'm a stork is from my color plain;
A stork, than which no better bird doth live;
I to my father aid and succor give."
The man replied:--"Good stork, I cannot tell
Your way of life: but this I know full well,
I caught you with the spoilers of my seed;
With them, with whom I found you, you must bleed."

Walk with the bad, and hate will be as strong
'Gainst you as them, e'en though you no man wrong.

THE PINE

Some woodmen, bent a forest pine to split,
Into each fissure sundry wedges fit,
To keep the void and render work more light.
Out groaned the pine, "Why should I vent my spite
Against the axe which never touched my root,
So much as these cursed wedges, mine own fruit;
Whic