[Page 156]

PICTURES FROM THEOCRITUS.

FROM IDYL I.
[Αδυ τι το ψθὑρισμα], etc.
1 Goat-herd, how sweet above the lucid spring
2 The high pines wave with breezy murmuring!
3 So sweet thy song, whose music might succeed
4 To the wild melodies of Pan's own reed.
THYRSIS.
5 More sweet thy pipe's enchanting melody
6 Than streams that fall from broken rocks on high.
7 Say, by the nymphs, that guard the sacred scene,
8 Where lowly tamarisks shade these hillocks green,
9 At noontide shall we lie? [Page 157]
10 No; for o'erwearied with the forest chase,
11 Pan, the great hunter god, sleeps in this place.
12 Beneath the branching elm, while thy sad verse,
13 O Thyrsis! Daphnis' sorrows shall rehearse,
14 Fronting the wood-nymph's solitary seat,
15 Whose fountains flash amid the dark retreat;
16 Where the old statue leans, and brown oaks wave
17 Their ancient umbrage o'er the pastoral cave;
18 There will we rest, and thou, as erst, prolong
19 The sweet enchantment of the Doric song!
FROM THE SAME IDYL.
20 Mark, where the beetling precipice appears,
21 The toil of the old fisher, gray with years;
22 Mark, as to drag the laden net he strains,
23 The labouring muscle and the swelling veins!
24 There, in the sun, the clustered vineyard bends,
25 And shines empurpled, as the morn ascends!
26 A little boy, with idly-happy mien,
27 To guard the grapes upon the ground is seen;
28 Two wily foxes creeping round appear, —
29 The scrip that holds his morning meal is near, —
30 One breaks the bending vines; with longing lip,
31 And look askance, one eyes the tempting scrip.
32 He plats and plats his rushy net all day,
33 And makes the vagrant grasshopper his prey;
34 He plats his net, intent with idle care,
35 Nor heeds how vineyard, grape, or scrip may fare.
FROM THE SAME.
36 Where were ye, nymphs, when Daphnis drooped with love?
37 In fair Peneus' Tempe, or the grove
38 Of Pindus! Nor your pastimes did ye keep,
39 Where huge Anapus' torrent waters sweep;[Page 158]
40 On Ætna's height, ah! impotent to save,
41 Nor yet where Akis winds his holy wave!
FROM THE SAME.
42 Pan, Pan, oh mighty hunter! whether now,
43 Thou roamest o'er Lyceus' shaggy brow,
44 Or Mœnalaus, outstretched in amplest shade,
45 Thy solitary footsteps have delayed;
46 Leave Helice's romantic rock a while,
47 And haste, oh haste, to the Sicilian isle;
48 Leave the dread monument, approached with fear,
49 That Lycaonian tomb the gods revere.
50 Here cease, Sicilian Muse, the Doric lay; —
51 Come, Forest King, and bear this pipe away;
52 Daphnis, subdued by love, and bowed with woe,
53 Sinks, sinks for ever to the shades below.
FROM IDYL VII.
54 He left us; — we, the hour of parting come,
55 To Prasidamus' hospitable home,
56 Myself and Eucritus, together wend,
57 With young Amynticus, our blooming friend:
58 There, all delighted, through the summer day,
59 On beds of rushes, pillowed deep, we lay;
60 Around, the lentils, newly cut, were spread;
61 Dark elms and poplars whispered o'er our head;
62 A hallowed stream, to all the wood-nymphs dear,
63 Fresh from the rocky cavern murmured near;
64 Beneath the fruit-leaves' many-mantling shade,
65 The grasshoppers a coil incessant made;
66 From the wild thorny thickets, heard remote,
67 The wood-lark trilled his far-resounding note;
68 Loud sung the thrush, musician of the scene,
69 And soft and sweet was heard the dove's sad note between;[Page 159]
70 Then yellow bees, whose murmur soothed the ear,
71 Went idly flitting round the fountain clear.
72 Summer and Autumn seemed at once to meet,
73 Filling with redolence the blest retreat,
74 While the ripe pear came rolling to our feet.
FROM IDYL XXII.
75 When the famed Argo now secure had passed
76 The crushing rocks,
93 Rocks which were supposed to strike one against the other, and so crush the ship that attempted to pass between.
and that terrific strait
77 That guards the wintry Pontic, the tall ship
78 Reached wild Bebrycia's shores; bearing like gods
79 Her god-descended chiefs. They, from her sides,
80 With scaling steps descend, and on the shore,
81 Savage, and sad, and beat by ocean winds,
82 Strewed their rough beds, and on the casual fire
83 The vessels place. The brothers, by themselves,
84 Castor and red-haired Pollux, wander far
85 Into the forest solitudes. A wood
86 Immense and dark, shagging the mountain side,
87 Before them rose; a cold and sparkling fount
88 Welled with perpetual lapse, beneath its feet,
89 Of purest water clear; scattering below,
90 Streams as of silver and of crystal rose,
91 Bright from the bottom: Pines, of stateliest height,
92 Poplar, and plane, and cypress, branching wide,
93 Were near, thick bordered by the scented flowers
94 That lured the honeyed bee, when spring declines,
95 Thick swarming o'er the meadows. There all day
96 A huge man sat, of savage, wild aspect;
97 His breast stood roundly forward, his broad back
98 Seemed as of iron, such as might befit
99 A vast Colossus sculptured. Full to view[Page 160]
100 The muscles of his brawny shoulders stood,
101 Like the round mountain-stones the torrent wave
102 Has polished; from his neck and back hung down
103 A lion's skin, held by its claws. Him first
104 The red-haired youth addressed: Hail, stranger, hail,
105 And say, what tribes unknown inhabit here!
106 Take to the seas thy Hail: I ask it not,
107 Who never saw before, or thee, or thine.
108 Courage! thou seest not men that are unjust
109 Or cruel.
109 Courage shall I learn from thee!
110 Thy heart is savage; thou art passion's slave.
111 Such as I am thou seest; but land of thine
112 I tread not.
112 Come, these hospitable gifts
113 Accept, and part in peace.
113 No: not from thee.
114 My gifts are yet in store.
114 Say, may we drink
115 Of this clear fount?
115 Ask, when wan thirst has parched
116 Thy lips.
116 What present shall I give to thee?
117 None. Stand before me as a man; lift high
118 Thy brandished arms, and try, weak pugilist,
119 Thy strength.
119 But say, with whom shall I contend?
120 Thou seest him here; nor in his art unskilled.
121 Then what shall be the prize of him who wins?
122 Or thou shalt be my slave, or I be thine.
123 The crested birds so fight.
123 Whether like birds
124 Or lions, for no other prize fight we!
125 He said: and sounded loud his hollow conch;[Page 161]
126 The gaunt Bebrycian brethren, at the sound,
127 With long lank hair, come flocking to the shade
128 Of that vast plain.
128 Then Castor hied, and called
129 The hero chiefs from the Magnesian
94 So called, from the country where it was built.
ship.

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Title (in Source Edition): PICTURES FROM THEOCRITUS.
Author: William Lisle Bowles
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Bowles, William Lisle, 1762-1850. The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. I. With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan. Edinburgh: James Nichol, 9 North Bank Street..., 1855, pp. 156-161.  (Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

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