A girl might be caressed
    Beside me freely sitting;
  A child on knee might rest,
    And not like thee, unwitting.

  Such honour is thy mother’s,
    Who smileth on thy sleep,
  Or for the nurse who smothers
    Thy cheek in kisses deep.

  And but for parting day,
    And but for forest shady,
  From me they’d take away
    The burden of their lady.

  Ah thus to feel thee leaning
    Above the nursemaid’s hand,
  Is like a stranger’s gleaning
    Where rich men own the land;

  Chance gains, and humble thrift,
    With shyness much like thieving,
  No notice with the gift,
    No thanks with the receiving.

  Oh peasant, when thou starvest
    Outside the fair domain,
  Imagine there’s a harvest
    In every treasured grain.

  Make with thy thoughts high cheer,
    Say grace for others dining,
  And keep thy pittance clear
    From poison of repining.

There is an almost intolerable acuity of sadness in the last two mocking verses, but how pretty and how tender the whole thing is, and how gentle-hearted must have been the man who wrote it!  The same tenderness reappears in references to children of a larger growth, the boys of his school.  Sometimes he very much regrets the necessity of discipline, and advocates a wiser method of dealing with the young.  How very pretty is this little verse about the boy he loves.

  Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft,
    At pleasure flying from afar,
  Sweet lips, just parted for a draught
    Of Hebe’s nectar, shall I mar
  By stress of disciplinal craft
    The joys that in your freedom are?

But a little reflection further on in the same poem reminds us how necessary the discipline must be for the battle of life, inasmuch as each of those charming boys will have to fight against evil—­

          yet shall ye cope
  With worlding wrapped in silken lies,
    With pedant, hypocrite, and pope.

One might easily lecture about this little volume for many more days, so beautiful are the things which fill it.  But enough has been cited to exemplify its unique value.  If you reread these quotations, I think you will find each time new beauty in them.  And the beauty is quite peculiar.  Such poetry could have been written only under two conditions.  The first is that the poet be a consummate scholar.  The second is that he must have suffered, as only a great mind and heart could suffer, from want of affection.

CHAPTER XV

OLD GREEK FRAGMENTS

The other day when we were reading some of the poems in “Ionica,” I promised to speak in another short essay of Theocritus and his songs or idyls of Greek peasant life, but in speaking of him it will be well also to speak of others who equally illustrate the fact that everywhere there is truth and beauty for the mind that can see.  I spoke last week about what I thought the highest possible kind of literary art might become.  But the possible becoming is yet far away; and in speaking of some old Greek writers I want only to emphasize the fact that modern literary art as well as ancient literary art produced their best results from a close study of human nature.