And thy dear song regrets, which sitting near
She fondly listed; ever did she flee

The Cyclops and his song; but far more dear
Thy song and sight than her own native sea:
On the deserted sands the nymph without her fee

Now sits and weeps, or weeping tends thy herd.
Away with Bion all the muse-gifts flew

The chirping kisses breathed at every word:
Around thy tomb the Loves their playmate rue;
Thee Cypris loved more than the kiss she drew
And breathed upon her dying paramour.

Most musical of rivers! now renew

Thy plaintive murmurs: Meles! now deplore Another son of song, as thou didst wail of yore

That sweet, sweet mouth of dear Calliope:
The threne, 'tis said, thy waves for Homer spun
With saddest music filled the refluent sea;
Now melting wail and weep another son!
Both loved of fountains - that of Helicon
Gave Melesigenes his pleasant draught;

To this sweet Arethuse did Bion run,

And from her urn the glowing rapture quaft:

Blest was the bard who sang how Helen bloomed and laught:

DD

On Thetis' mighty son his descant ran,
And Menelaus; but our Bion chose

Not arms and tears to sing, but Love and Pan;
While browsed his herd, his gushing music rose;
He milked his kine; did pipes of reeds compose;
Taught how to kiss; and fondled in his breast
Young Love and Cypris pleased. For Bion flows
In every glorious land a grief confest :

Ascra for her own bard, wise Hesiod, less exprest:

Boeotian Hylæ mourned for Pindar less;
Teos regretted less her minstrel hoar,
And Mytelene her sweet poetess;

Nor for Alcæus Lesbos suffered more;
Nor lovely Paros did so much deplore
Her own Archilochus. Breathing her fire
Into her sons of song, from shore to shore
For thee the Pastoral Muse attunes her lyre
To woeful utterance of passionate desire.

Sicelidas, the famous Samian star,

And he with smiling eye and radiant face,

Cydonian Lycidas, renowned afar,

Lament thee; where quick Hales runs his race,

Philetus wails; Theocritus, the grace

Of Syracuse, thee mourns; nor these among
Am I remiss Ausonian wreaths to place

Around thy tomb: to me doth it belong

To chaunt for thee from whom I learnt the Dorian song.

Me with thy minstrel skill as proper heir,
Others thou didst endow with thine estate.
Alas! Alas! when in a garden fair
Mallows, crisp dill, or parsley yields to fate,
These with another year regerminate;

But when of mortal life the bloom and crown,
The wise, the good, the valiant and the great
Succumb to death, in hollow earth shut down
We sleep
for ever sleep for ever lie unknown.

Thus art thou pent, while frogs may croak at will; I envy not their croak. Thee poison slew

How kept it in thy mouth its nature ill?

If thou didst speak, what cruel wretch could brew
The draught? He did, of course, thy song eschew.

But justice all o'ertakes. My tears fast flow
For thee, my friend! Could I, like Orpheus true,
Odysseus, or Alcides, pass below

To gloomy Tartarus, how quickly would I go!

To see and haply hear thee sing for Dis!
But in the Nymph's ear warble evermore,
My dearest friend! thy sweetest harmonies:
For whilom, on her own Etnëan shore,

She sang wild snatches of the Dorian lore.

Nor will thy singing unrewarded be;

Thee to thy mountain haunts she will restore,

As she gave Orpheus his Eurydice.

Could I charm Dis with songs, I too would sing for thee.

IDYL IV.

MEGAR A.

"WHY dost thou vex thy spirit, mother mine?

Why fades thy cheek? at what dost thou repine? Because thy son must serve a popinjay,

As though a lion did a fawn obey?

Why have the gods so much dishonoured me?
Why was I born to such a destiny?

Spouse of a man I cherished as mine eyes,
For whom heart-deep my vowed affection lies,
Yet must I see him crossed by adverse fate,
Of mortal men the most misfortunate!
Who with the arrows, which Apollo-no!
Some Fate or Fury did on him bestow,

In his own house his own sons raging slew—
Where in the house was not the purple dew?