Page:Virgil (Collins).djvu/27

Rh

Their ragged time-worn tops against the sky,

Your poet-master had redeemed by song.

You heard, no doubt—and so the story went;

But song, good Lycidas, avails as much,

When swords are drawn, as might the trembling dove

When on Dodona swoops the eagle down.

Nay—had I not been warned of woes to come—

Warned by a raven's croak on my left hand

From out the hollow oak—why then, my friend,

You had lost your Mœris and his master too."

Honest Lycidas expresses his horror at the narrow escape of the neighbourhood from such a catastrophe. What should they all have done for a poet, if they had lost Menalcas? who could compose such songs—and who could sing them? And he breaks out himself into fragmentary reminiscences which he has picked up by ear from his friend. Then Mœris too—who, being a poet's farm-servant, has caught a little of the inspiration—repeats a few lines of his master's. "As you hope for any blessings," says Lycidas, "let me hear the rest of it."

So may your bees avoid the poisonous yew—

So may your cows bring full-swoln udders home—

If canst remember aught, begin at once. I too,

I am a poet, by the Muses' grace: some songs

I have, mine own composing; and the swains

Call me their bard—but I were weak to heed them.

I cannot vie with masters of the art