That schooner, you remember? Flying ghost!
Her canvas catching every wandering beam,
Aerial, noiseless, past the glimmering coast
She glided like a dream.
Would we were leaning from your window now, Together calling to the eerie loon,
The fresh wind blowing care from either brow, This sumptuous night of June!
So many sighs load this sweet inland air,
'Tis hard to breathe, nor can we find relief:
However lightly touched, we all must share
This nobleness of grief.
But sighs are spent before they reach your ear; Vaguely they mingle with the water's rune. No sadder sound salutes you than the clear, Wild laughter of the loon.
UPON my lips she laid her touch divine,
And merry speech and careless laughter died;
She fixed her melancholy eyes on mine,
And would not be denied.
I saw the West Wind loose his cloudlets white
In flocks, careering through the April sky;
I could not sing, though joy was at its height,
For she stood silent by.
I watched the lovely evening fade away;
A mist was lightly drawn across the stars:
She broke my quiet dream,
- I heard her say,
"Behold your prison bars!
"Earth's gladness shall not satisfy your soul; This beauty of the world in which you live, The crowning grace that sanctifies the whole, — That, I alone can give."
THE aster by the brook is dead,
And quenched the golden-rod's brief fire;
The maple's last red leaf is shed,
And dumb the birds' sweet choir.
THEOCRITUS, the greatest Greek bucolic poet; born at Syracuse, near the middle of the third century B. c. The details of his personal history are very meagre. About 270 B. c. he was drawn to Alexandria, in Egypt, where he rose into favor with King Ptolemy Philadelphus, the founder of the famous Alexandrian Library, whom he has extolled in one of his best poems. Subsequently he returned to his native island, where he is supposed to have passed the remainder of his life. Theocritus was the creator of what is styled "idyllic" poetry. The extant works of Theocritus consist of thirty idyls and twenty-two epigrams.
(Translated by Charles Stuart Calverley.)
SWEET are the whispers of yon pine that makes
Low music o'er the spring, and, Goatherd, sweet
Thy piping; second thou to Pan alone.
Is his the hornèd ram? then thine the goat.
Is his the goat? to thee shall fall the kid;
And toothsome is the flesh of unmilked kids.
Shepherd, thy lay is as the noise of streams
Falling and falling aye from yon tall crag.
If for their meed the Muses claim the ewe,
Be thine the stall-fed lamb; or if they choose
The lamb, take thou the scarce less-valued ewe.
Pray, by the Nymphs, pray, Goatherd, seat thee here
Against this hill-slope in the tamarisk shade,
And pipe me somewhat, while I guard thy goats
I durst not, Shepherd, O I durst not pipe
At noontide; fearing Pan, who at that hour
Rests from the toils of hunting. Harsh is he;
Wrath at his nostrils aye sits sentinel.
But, Thyrsis, thou canst sing of Daphnis' woes;
High is thy name for woodland minstrelsy:
Then rest we in the shadow of the elm
Fronting Priapus and the Fountain-nymphs.
There, where the oaks are and the Shepherd's seat, Sing as thou sang'st erewhile, when matched with him Of Libya, Chromis; and I'll give thee, first,
To milk, ay thrice, a goat-she suckles twins,
Yet ne'ertheless can fill two milkpails full;
Next, a deep drinking-cup, with sweet wax scoured,
Two-handled, newly-carven, smacking yet
O' the chisel. Ivy reaches up and climbs
About its lip, gilt here and there with sprays
Of woodbine, that enwreathed about it flaunts
Her saffron fruitage. Framed therein appears
A damsel ('t is a miracle of art)
In robe and snood: and suitors at her side
With locks fair-flowing, on her right and left,
Battle with words, that fail to reach her heart.
She, laughing, glances now on this, flings now
Her chance regards on that: they, all for love
Wearied and eye-swoln, find their labor lost.
Carven elsewhere an ancient fisher stands
On the rough rocks: thereto the old man with pains
Drags his great casting-net, as one that toils
Full stoutly every fibre of his frame
Seems fishing; so about the gray-beard's neck
(In might a youngster yet) the sinews swell.
Hard by that wave-beat sire a vineyard bends
Beneath its graceful load of burnished grapes;
A boy sits on the rude fence watching them.
Near him two foxes: down the rows of grapes
One ranging steals the ripest; one assails
With wiles the poor lad's scrip, to leave him soon
Stranded and supperless. He plaits meanwhile
With ears of corn a right fine cricket-trap,
And fits it on a rush: for vines, for scrip,
Little he cares, enamoured of his toy.
The cup is hung all round with lissom briar,
Triumph of Æolian art, a wondrous sight.
It was a ferryman's of Calydon:
A goat it cost me, and a great white cheese.
Ne'er yet my lips came near it, virgin still
It stands. And welcome to such boon art thou,
If for my sake thou 'lt sing that lay of lays.
I jest not up, lad, sing: no songs thou 'lt own
In the dim land where all things are forgot.
Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. The voice of Thyrsis. Etna's Thyrsis I.
Where were ye, Nymphs, oh where, while Daphnis pined?
In fair Penëus' or in Pindus' glens?
For great Anapus' stream was not your haunt,
Nor Ætna's cliff, nor Acis' sacred rill.
Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.
O'er him the wolves, the jackals howled o'er him;
The lion in the oak-copse mourned his death.
Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.
The kine and oxen stood around his feet,
The heifers and the calves wailed all for him.
Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.
First from the mountain Hermes came, and said,
"Daphnis, who frets thee? Lad, whom lov'st thou so?"
Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.
Came herdsmen, shepherds came, and goatherds came;
All asked what ailed the lad. Priapus came
And said, "Why pine, poor Daphnis ? while the maid
Foots it round every pool and every grove,
(Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song) "O lack-love and perverse, in quest of thee; Herdsman in name, but goatherd rightlier called. With eyes that yearn the goatherd marks his kids. Run riot, for he fain would frisk as they:
(Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song): "With eyes that yearn dost thou too mark the laugh Of maidens, for thou may'st not share their glee." Still naught the herdsman said: he drained alone His bitter portion, till the fatal end.
Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song.
Came Aphroditè, smiles on her sweet face,
False smiles, for heavy was her heart, and spake:
"So, Daphnis, thou must try a fall with Love!
But stalwart Love hath won the fall of thee."
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