Page:Eclogues of Virgil (1908).djvu/30

 His garlands lay beyond, fall'n from his head;

His heavy wine-jar from worn handle hung:

They seize him (for he oft had promised fair

To sing them songs) and bind, with his own wreaths;

Now comes the fairest of the Naiads near,

Ægle, encouraging the coward boys,

And, as he opes his eyes, she with the juice

Of mulberries, stains his brows and temples red.

He, laughing at the trick, saith, "Loose me, lads,

Why tie these bonds? Enough that I am seen.

"Now hear the songs ye wish for—songs for you—

"For her some other payment"—then began

And as he sang you well could think you saw

Fauns and wild creatures frisking in the dance;

Then the stiff oaks waving their topmost boughs,

The cliff Parnassian, less in Phœbus joyed,

Less did the Thracian hills Orpheus admire,

For now he sang how through the vasty void

Were gathered once the seeds of all those things

In earth and air and sea and liquid fire

That grew together—till the young orbed world

Itself was shaped—then how the solid earth

Separate became, and all the waters wide

Were prison'd by degrees in the sea's cup.

Then sang he how the lands were all amazed

To see the new-born Sun rise and shine forth

And from the clouds on high the rain showers fall.

When the thick forests first began to rise

And a few creatures ranged the unknown hills,