Fairy Bombyca! twinkling dice thy feet,
Poppies thy lips, thy ways none knows how sweet!
MILO.
Who dreamed what subtle strains our bumpkin wrought?
How shone the artist in each measured verse!
Fie on the beard that I have grown for naught!
Mark, lad, these lines by glorious Lytierse.
[_Sings_]
O rich in fruit and cornblade: be this field
Tilled well, Demeter, and fair fruitage yield!
Bind the sheaves, reapers: lest one, passing, say--
'A fig for these, they're never worth their pay.'
Let the mown swathes look northward, ye who mow,
Or westward--for the ears grow fattest so.
Avoid a noontide nap, ye threshing men:
The chaff flies thickest from the corn-ears then.
Wake when the lark wakes; when he slumbers, close
Your work, ye reapers: and at noontide doze.
Boys, the frogs' life for me! They need not him
Who fills the flagon, for in drink they swim.
Better boil herbs, thou toiler after gain,
Than, splitting cummin, split thy hand in twain.
Strains such as these, I trow, befit them well
Who toil and moil when noon is at its height:
Thy meagre love-tale, bumpkin, though shouldst tell
Thy grandam as she wakes up ere 'tis light.
IDYLL XI.
The Giant's Wooing
Methinks all nature hath no cure for Love,
Plaster or unguent, Nicias, saving one;
And this is light and pleasant to a man,
Yet hard withal to compass--minstrelsy.
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