ll, Cymaetha! Great Pan, how deaf thou art!
I shall be with thee presently, and in the end thou'lt smart.
I warn thee, keep thy distance. Look, up she creeps again!
Oh were my hare-crook in nay hand, I'd give it to her then!

BATTUS.
For heaven's sake, Corydon, look here! Just now a bramble-spike
Ran, there, into my instep--and oh how deep they strike,
Those lancewood-shafts! A murrain light on that calf, I say!
I got it gaping after her. Canst thou discern it, pray?

CORYDON.
Ay, ay; and here I have it, safe in my finger-nails.

BATTUS.
Eh! at how slight a matter how tall a warrior quails!

CORYDON.
Ne'er range the hill-crest, Battus, all sandal-less and bare:
Because the thistle and the thorn lift aye their plumed heads there.

BATTUS.
--Say, Corydon, does that old man we wot of (tell me please!)
Still haunt the dark-browed little girl whom once he used to tease?

CORYDON.
Ay my poor boy, that doth he: I saw them yesterday
Down by the byre; and, trust me, loving enough were they.

BATTUS.
Well done, my veteran light-o'-love! In deeming thee mere man,
I wronged thy sire: some Satyr he, or an uncouth-limbed Pan.

IDYLL V.

The Battle of the Bards.

_COMETAS. LACON. MORSON_.

COMETAS.
Goats, from a shepherd who stands here, from Lacon, keep away:
Sibyrtas owns him; and he stole my goatskin yesterday.

LACON.
Hi! lambs! avoid yon fountain. Have ye not eyes to see
Cometas, him who filched a pipe but two days back from me?

COMETAS.
Sibyrtas' bondsman own a pipe? whence gotst thou that, and how?
Tootling through straws with Corydon mayhap's beneath thee now?

LACON.
'Twas Lycon's gift, your highness. But pray, Cometas, say,
What is that skin wherewith thou saidst that Lacon walked away?
Why, thy lord's self had ne'er a skin whereon his limbs to lay.

COMETAS.
The skin that Crocylus gave me, a dark one streaked with white,
The day he slew his she-goat. Why, thou wert ill with spite,
Then, my false friend; and thou would'st end by beggaring me quite.

LACON.
Did Lacon, did Calaethis' son purloin a goatskin? No,
By Pan that haunts the sea-beach! Lad, if I served thee so,
Crazed may I drop from yon hill-top to Crathis' stream below!

COMETAS.
Nor pipe of thine, good fellow--the Ladies of the Lake