scape death,
That I have all but died will pleasure thee.
That learned I when (I murmuring 'loves she me?')
The _Love-in-absence_, crushed, returned no sound,
But shrank and shrivelled on my smooth young wrist.
I learned it of the sieve-divining crone
Who gleaned behind the reapers yesterday:
'Thou'rt wrapt up all,' Agraia said, 'in her;
She makes of none account her worshipper.'
Lo! a white goat, and twins, I keep for thee:
Mermnon's lass covets them: dark she is of skin:
But yet hers be they; thou but foolest me.
She cometh, by the quivering of mine eye.
I'll lean against the pine-tree here and sing.
She may look round: she is not adamant.

[_Sings_] Hippomenes, when he a maid would wed,
Took apples in his hand and on he sped.
Famed Atalanta's heart was won by this;
She marked, and maddening sank in Love's abyss.

From Othrys did the seer Melampus stray
To Pylos with his herd: and lo there lay
In a swain's arms a maid of beauty rare;
Alphesiboea, wise of heart, she bare.

Did not Adonis rouse to such excess
Of frenzy her whose name is Loveliness,
(He a mere lad whose wethers grazed the hill)
That, dead, he's pillowed on her bosom still?

Endymion sleeps the sleep that changeth not:
And, maiden mine, I envy him his lot!
Envy Iasion's: his it was to gain
Bliss that I dare not breathe in ears profane.

My head aches. What reck'st thou? I sing no more:
E'en where I fell I'll lie, until the wolves
Rend me--may that be honey in thy mouth!

IDYLL IV.

The Herdsmen.

_BATTUS. CORYDON._

BATTUS.
Who owns these cattle, Corydon? Philondas? Prythee say.

CORYDON.
No, AEgon: and he gave them me to tend while he's away.

BATTUS.
Dost milk them in the gloaming, when none is nigh to see?

CORYDON.
The old man brings the calves to suck, and keeps an eye on me.

BATTUS.
And to what region then hath flown the cattle's rightful lord?

CORYDON.
Hast thou not heard? With Milo he vanished Elis-ward.

BATTUS.
How! was the wrestler's oil e'er yet so much as seen by him?

CORYDON.
Men say he rivals Heracles in lustiness of limb.

BATTUS.
I'm Polydeuces' match (or so my mother says) and more.

CORYDON.
--So off he started; with a spade, and of these ewes a score.

BATTUS.