hy favourite's--chiefly by the young."
But lo, the future is in heaven's high hand:
Meanwhile thy graces all my praise demand,
Not false lip-praise, not idly bubbling froth--
For though thy wrath be kindled, e'en thy wrath
Hath no sting in it: doubly I am caressed,
And go my way repaid with interest.

Oarsmen of Megara, ruled by Nisus erst!
Yours be all bliss, because ye honoured first
That true child-lover, Attic Diocles.
Around his gravestone with the first spring-breeze
Flock the bairns all, to win the kissing-prize:
And whoso sweetliest lip to lip applies
Goes crown-clad home to its mother. Blest is he
Who in such strife is named the referee:
To brightfaced Ganymede full oft he'll cry
To lend his lip the potencies that lie
Within that stone with which the usurers
Detect base metal, and which never errs.

IDYLL XIII.

Hylas.

Not for us only, Nicias, (vain the dream,)
Sprung from what god soe'er, was Eros born:
Not to us only grace doth graceful seem,
Frail things who wot not of the coming morn.
No--for Amphitryon's iron-hearted son,
Who braved the lion, was the slave of one:--

A fair curled creature, Hylas was his name.
He taught him, as a father might his child,
All songs whereby himself had risen to fame;
Nor ever from his side would be beguiled
When noon was high, nor when white steeds convey
Back to heaven's gates the chariot of the day,

Nor when the hen's shrill brood becomes aware
Of bed-time, as the mother's flapping wings
Shadow the dust-browned beam. 'Twas all his care
To shape unto his own imaginings
And to the harness train his favourite youth,
Till he became a man in very truth.

Meanwhile, when kingly Jason steered in quest
Of the Gold Fleece, and chieftains at his side
Chosen from all cities, proffering each her best,
To rich Iolchos came that warrior tried,
And joined him unto trim-built Argo's crew;
And with Alcmena's son came Hylas too.

Through the great gulf shot Argo like a bird--
And by-and-bye reached Phasis, ne'er o'erta'en
By those in-rushing rocks, that have not stirred
Since then, but bask, twin monsters, on the main.
But now, when waned the spring, and lambs were fed
In far-off fields, and Pleiads gleamed overhead,

That cream and flower of kn