Eclogues

Virgil

Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

  1. prove lucky! something it must mean, for sure,
  2. and Hylax on the threshold 'gins to bark!
  3. May we believe it, or are lovers still
  4. by their own fancies fooled?
LYCIDAS
  1. Say whither, Moeris?—Make you for the town,
  2. or on what errand bent?
MOERIS
  1. O Lycidas,
  2. we have lived to see, what never yet we feared,
  3. an interloper own our little farm,
  4. and say, “Be off, you former husbandmen!
  5. These fields are mine.” Now, cowed and out of heart,
  6. since Fortune turns the whole world upside down,
  7. we are taking him—ill luck go with the same!—
  8. these kids you see.
LYCIDAS
  1. But surely I had heard
  2. that where the hills first draw from off the plain,
  3. and the high ridge with gentle slope descends,
  4. down to the brook-side and the broken crests