DAPHNIS. 
    “Me from her grot but yesterday a girl of haughty brow
    Spied as I passed her with my kine, and said, “How fair art thou!”
    I vow that not one bitter word in answer did I say,
    But, looking ever on the ground, went silently my way. 
    The heifer’s voice, the heifer’s breath, are passing sweet to me;
    And sweet is sleep by summer-brooks upon the breezy lea: 
    As acorns are the green oak’s pride, apples the apple-bough’s;
    So the cow glorieth in her calf, the cowherd in his cows.” 
    Thus the two lads; then spoke the third, sitting his goats among: 

    GOATHERD. 
    “O Daphnis, lovely is thy voice, thy music sweetly sung;
    Such song is pleasanter to me than honey on my tongue. 
    Accept this pipe, for thou hast won.  And should there be some notes
    That thou couldst teach me, as I plod alongside with my goats,
    I’ll give thee for thy schooling this ewe, that horns hath none: 
    Day after day she’ll fill the can, until the milk o’errun.”

      Then how the one lad laughed and leaped and clapped his hands for
          glee! 
    A kid that bounds to meet its dam might dance as merrily. 
    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.