LYCE, the gods have listened to my prayer; The gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art grey, And still would’st thou seem fair; Still unshamed drink, and play,
And, wine-flushed, woo slow-answering Love with weak Shrill pipings. With young Chia He doth dwell, Queen of the harp; her cheek Is his sweet citadel:—
He marked the withered oak, and on he flew Intolerant; shrank from Lyce grim and wrinkled, Whose teeth are ghastly-blue, Whose temples snow-besprinkled:—
Not purple, not the brightest gem that glows, Brings back to her the years which, fleeting fast, Time hath once shut in those Dark annals of the Past.
Oh, where is all thy loveliness? soft hue And motions soft? Oh, what of Her doth rest, Her, who breathed love, who drew My heart out of my breast?
Fair, and far-famed, and subtly sweet, thy face Ranked next to Cinara’s. But to Cinara fate Gave but a few years’ grace; And lets live, all too late,
Lyce, the rival of the beldam crow: That fiery youth may see with scornful brow The torch that long ago Beamed bright, a cinder now.
PERSIAN grandeur I abhor; Linden-wreathèd crowns, avaunt: Boy, I bid thee not explore Woods which latest roses haunt:
Try on nought thy busy craft Save plain myrtle; so arrayed Thou shalt fetch, I drain, the draught Fitliest ’neath the scant vine-shade.
LO! smoking in the stubborn plough, the ox Falls, from his lip foam gushing crimson-stained, And sobs his life out. Sad of face the ploughman Moves, disentangling from his comrade’s corpse The lone survivor: and its work half-done, Abandoned in the furrow stands the plough. Not shadiest forest-depths, not softest lawns, May move him now: not river amber-pure, That volumes o’er the cragstones to the plain. Powerless the broad sides, glazed the rayless eye, And low and lower sinks the ponderous neck. What thank hath he for all the toil he toiled, The heavy-clodded land in man’s behoof Upturning? Yet the grape of Italy, The stored-up feast hath wrought no harm to him: Green leaf and taintless grass are all their fare; The clear rill or the travel-freshen’d stream Their cup: nor one care mars their honest sleep.
SCARCE midway were we yet, nor yet descried The stone that hides what once was Brasidas: When there drew near a wayfarer from Crete, Young Lycidas, the Muses’ votary. The horned herd was his care: a glance might tell So much: for every inch a herdsman he. Slung o’er his shoulder was a ruddy hide Torn from a he-goat, shaggy, tangle-haired, That reeked of rennet yet: a broad belt clasped A patched cloak round his breast, and for a staff A gnarled wild-olive bough his right hand bore. Soon with a quiet smile he spoke—his eye Twinkled, and laughter sat upon his lip: “And whither ploddest thou thy weary way Beneath the noontide sun, Simichides? For now the lizard sleeps upon the wall, The crested lark hath closed his wandering wing. Speed’st thou, a bidd’n guest, to some reveller’s board? Or townwards, to the treading of the grape? For lo! recoiling from thy hurrying feet The pavement-stones ring out right merrily.”