with my kine, and said, "How fair art thou!"
I vow that not one bitter word in answer did I say,
But, looking ever on the ground, went silently my way.
The heifer's voice, the heifer's breath, are passing sweet to me;
And sweet is sleep by summer-brooks upon the breezy lea:
As acorns are the green oak's pride, apples the apple-bough's;
So the cow glorieth in her calf, the cowherd in his cows."
Thus the two lads; then spoke the third, sitting his goats among:

GOATHERD.
"O Daphnis, lovely is thy voice, thy music sweetly sung;
Such song is pleasanter to me than honey on my tongue.
Accept this pipe, for thou hast won. And should there be some notes
That thou couldst teach me, as I plod alongside with my goats,
I'll give thee for thy schooling this ewe, that horns hath none:
Day after day she'll fill the can, until the milk o'errun."

Then how the one lad laughed and leaped and clapped his hands for
glee!
A kid that bounds to meet its dam might dance as merrily.
And how the other inly burned, struck down by his disgrace!
A maid first parting from her home might wear as sad a face.

Thenceforth was Daphnis champion of all the country side:
And won, while yet in topmost youth, a Naiad for his bride.

IDYLL IX.

Pastorals.

_DAPHNIS. MENALCAS. A SHEPHERD._

SHEPHERD.
A song from Daphnis! Open he the lay,
He open: and Menalcas follow next:
While the calves suck, and with the barren kine
The young bulls graze, or roam knee-deep in leaves,
And ne'er play truant. But a song from thee,
Daphnis--anon Menalcas will reply.

DAPHNIS.
Sweet is the chorus of the calves and kine,
And sweet the herdsman's pipe. But none may vie
With Daphnis; and a rush-strown bed is mine
Near a cool rill, where carpeted I lie
On fair white goatskins. From a hill-top high
The westwind swept me down the herd entire,
Cropping the strawberries: whence it comes that I
No more heed summer, with his breath of fire,
Than lovers heed the words of mother and of sire.

Thus Daphnis: and Menalcas answered thus:--

MENALCAS.
O AEtna, mother mine! A grotto fair,
Scooped in the rocks, have I: and there I keep
All that in dreams men picture! Treasured there
Are multitudes of she-goats and of sheep,
Swathed in whose wool from top to toe I s