"Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts To other cares than those of feeding you. [are due Whate'er befall, unless by cruel chance

The wolf first gave me a forbidding glance,
Thou shalt not moulder undeplored, but long
Thy praise shall dwell on every shepherd's tongue.
To Daphnis first they shall delight to pay,
And, after him, to thee the votive lay,

While Pales shall the flocks and pastures love,
Or Faunus to frequent the field or grove;
At least, if ancient piety and truth,
With all the learned labours of thy youth,
May serve thee aught, or to have left behind
A sorrowing friend, and of the tuneful kind.

"Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts
To other cares than those of feeding you. [are due
Who, now, my pains and perils shall divide,
As thou wast wont, for ever at my side,
Both when the rugged frost annoy'd our feet,
And when the herbage all was parch'd with heat;
Whether the grim wolf's ravage to prevent,
Or the huge lion's, arm'd with darts we went;
Whose converse now shall calm my stormy day,
With charming song who now beguile my way?

"Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts To other cares than those of feeding you. [are due In whom shall I confide? Whose counsel find A balmy medicine for my troubled mind? Or whose discourse with innocent delight Shall fill me now, and cheat the wintry night,

elm.

While hisses on my hearth the pulpy pear,
And blackening chestnuts start and crackle there,
While storms abroad the dreary meadows whelm,
And the wind thunders through the neighbouring
[are due
"Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts
To other cares than those of feeding you.
Or who, when summer suns their summit reach,
And Pan sleeps hidden by the sheltering beech,
When shepherds disappear, nymphs seek the sedge,
And the stretch'd rustic snores beneath the hedge,
Who then shall render me thy pleasant vein
Of attic wit, thy jests, thy smiles again?

66

Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts To other cares than those of feeding you. [are due Where glens and vales are thickest overgrown With tangled boughs, I wander now alone, Till night descend, while blustering wind and shower

Beat on my temples through the shatter'd bower.

"Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts To other cares than those of feeding you. [are due Alas! what rampant weeds now shame my fields, And what a mildew'd crop the furrow yields; My rambling vines, unwedded to the trees, Bear shrivel'd grapes; my myrtles fail to please; Nor please me more my flocks: they, slighted, turn Their unavailing looks on me, and mourn.

"Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts To other cares than those of feeding you. [are due

Ægon invites me to the hazel grove,
Amyntas, on the river's bank to rove,
And young Alphesibous to a seat

Where branching elms exclude the midday heat. 'Here fountains spring-here mossy hillocks rise; Here zephyr whispers, and the stream replies.'— Thus each persuades, but, deaf to every call,

I gain the thickets, and escape them all.

Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts To other cares than those of feeding you. [are due Then Mopsus said, (the same who reads so well The voice of birds, and what the stars foretell, For he by chance had noticed my return) 'What means thy sullen mood, this deep concern? Ah, Thyrsis! thou art either crazed with love, Or some sinister influence from above;

Dull Saturn's influence oft the shepherds rue; His leaden shaft oblique has pierced thee through.' Go, go, my lambs, unpastured as ye are,

My thoughts are all now due to other care.
The nymphs amazed, my melancholy see,
And, 'Thyrsis!' cry-what will become of thee?
What wouldst thou, Thyrsis? such should not

appear

The brow of youth, stern, gloomy, and severe; Brisk youth should laugh, and love—ah, shun the

fate

[late!' Of those, twice wretched mopes! who love too "Go, go, my lambs, unpastured as ye are; My thoughts are all now due to other care.

Ægle with Hyas came, to soothe my pain,
And Baucis' daughter, Dryope, the vain,
Fair Dryope, for voice and finger neat
Known far and near, and for her self-conceit;
Chloris too came, whose cottage on the lands
That skirt the Idumanian current stands;
But all in vain they came, and but to see
Kind words, and comfortable, lost on me.
"Go, go, my lambs, unpastured as ye are ;
My thoughts are all now due to other care.
Ah blest indifference of the playful herd,
None by his fellow chosen, or preferr'd!
No bonds of amity the flocks inthral,
But each associates, and is pleased with all;
So
graze the dappled deer in numerous droves,
And all his kind alike the zebra loves;

The same law governs, where the billows roar,
And Proteus' shoals o'erspread the desert shore ;
The sparrow, meanest of the feather'd race,
His fit companion finds in every place,

With whom he picks the grain that suits him best,
Flirts here and there, and late returns to rest,
And whom, if chance the falcon make his prey,
Or hedger with his well aim'd arrow slay,
For no such loss the gay survivor grieves,
New love he seeks, and new delight receives.
We only, an obdurate kind, rejoice,

Scorning all others, in a single choice.

We scarce in thousands meet one kindred mind, And if the long-sought good at last we find,

When least we fear it, Death our treasure steals, And gives our heart a wound that nothing heals.

66

Go, go, my lambs, unpastured as ye are ;

My thoughts are all now due to other care.
Ah, what delusion lured me from my flocks,
To traverse Alpine snows and rugged rocks!
What need so great had I to visit Rome,
Now sunk in ruins, and herself a tomb?
Or, had she flourish'd still, as when, of old,
For her sake Tityrus forsook his fold,
What need so great had I to incur a pause
Of thy sweet intercourse for such a cause,
For such a cause to place the roaring sea, [me?
Rocks, mountains, woods, between my friend and
Else, had I grasp'd thy feeble hand, composed
Thy decent limbs, thy drooping eyelids closed,
And, at the last, had said-" Farewell-ascend-
Nor even in the skies forget thy friend!"

Go, go, my lambs, untended homeward fare; My thoughts are all now due to other care. Although well pleased, ye tuneful Tuscan swains! My mind the memory of your worth retains, Yet not your worth can teach me less to mourn My Damon lost. He too was Tuscan born, Born in your Lucca, city of renown! And wit possess'd, and genius, like your own. Oh how elate was I, when stretch'd beside The murmuring course of Arno's breezy tide, Beneath the poplar grove I pass'd my hours, Now cropping myrtles, and now vernal flowers,