'd her
Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother.

Nor would move from her arms away: but only
Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither,
Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her. 10

Now he wendeth along the mirky pathway,
Whence, they tell us, is hopeless all returning.

Evil on ye, the shades of evil Orcus,
Shades all beauteous happy things devouring,
Such a beauteous happy bird ye took him. 15

Ah! for pity; but ah! for him the sparrow,
Our poor sparrow, on whom to think my lady's
Eyes do angrily redden all a-weeping.

IV.

1.

The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern,
Of every ship professes agilest to be.
Nor yet a timber o'er the waves alertly flew
She might not aim to pass it; oary-wing'd alike
To fleet beyond them, or to scud beneath a sail. 5

Nor here presumes denial any stormy coast
Of Adriatic or the Cyclad orbed isles,
A Rhodos immemorial, or that icy Thrace,
Propontis, or the gusty Pontic ocean-arm,

Whereon, a pinnace after, in the days of yore 10
A leafy shaw she budded; oft Cytorus' height
With her did inly whisper airy colloquy.

2.

Amastris, you by Pontus, you, the box-clad hill
Of high Cytorus, all, the pinnace owns, to both
Was ever, is familiar; in the primal years 15
She stood upon your hoary top, a baby tree,
Within your haven early dipt a virgin oar:

To carry thence a master o'er the surly seas,
A world of angry water, hail'd to left, to right
The breeze of invitation, or precisely set 20
The sheets together op'd to catch a kindly Jove.

Nor yet of any power whom the coasts adore
Was heard a vow to soothe them, all the weary way
From outer ocean unto glassy quiet here.

But all the past is over; indolently now 25
She rusts, a life in autumn, and her age devotes
To Castor and with him ador'd, the twin divine.

V.

Living, Lesbia, we should e'en be loving.
Sour severity, tongue of eld maligning,
All be to us a penny's estimation.

Suns set only to rise again to-morrow.
We, when sets in a little hour the brief light, 5
Sleep one infinite age, a night for ever.