Page:A translation of the Latin works of Dante Alighieri.djvu/394

I.

Breathless? 'O Melibœus, others vie To master lore litigious. Mopsus still Year in year out himself hath dedicate To the Aonlan mountains; hath grown pale Beneath the shadows of the sacred grove, Drenched by prophetic waters, inly filled, Aye to the palate, with the milk of song! He to the leaves sprung from the Peneid's change Invites me.' 'And thine answer? Thinkest thou Thus still to wear thy temples unadorned, A shepherd ever on the rustic plains?' Said Melibœus. 'Scattered, to the winds The glory, aye, the very name of bards! O Melibœus,' I had said, 'And scarce One vigil-keeping Mopsus hath the muse Known to maintain!' Then indignation gave A voice to utter these: 'What bleating sounds Would gather from the flocks o'er hill and plain If to a pæan I should smite the strings With leaf-entwined hair! But let me shun The glades and pastures that know not the gods! Were it not better my triumphant locks Should hide beneath the green their hoariness, Erst auburn-glowing, by the ancestral stream, Should ever I return to deck them there, Of Arno.' 'Nay, who doubts it? 'he replied, But mark time's flight, O Tityrus, how swift! And goats whose dams we mated waxing old!'

'Ah! when the gliding universal orbs And the star-woning spirits, in my song, E'en as the nether realms, shall stand revealed,