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 sleep.
The fire that boils my pot, with oak or beech
Is piled--dry beech-logs when the snow lies deep;
And storm and sunshine, I disdain them each
As toothless sires a nut, when broth is in their reach.
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