The hearts of men were made of sterling gold,
When troth met troth, in those brave days of old,'
O Zeus, O gods who age not nor decay!
Let e'en two hundred ages roll away,
But at the last these tidings let me learn,
Borne o'er the fatal pool whence none return:--
"By every tongue thy constancy is sung,
Thine and thy 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.
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