Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- your vines in order! Go, once happy flock,
- my she-goats, go. Never again shall I,
- stretched in green cave, behold you from afar
- hang from the bushy rock; my songs are sung;
- never again will you, with me to tend,
- on clover-flower, or bitter willows, browse.
- Yet here, this night, you might repose with me,
- on green leaves pillowed: apples ripe have I,
- soft chestnuts, and of curdled milk enow.
- And, see, the farm-roof chimneys smoke afar,
- and from the hills the shadows lengthening fall!
- the shepherd Corydon with love was fired
- for fair Alexis, his own master's joy:
- no room for hope had he, yet, none the less,
- the thick-leaved shadowy-soaring beech-tree grove
- still would he haunt, and there alone, as thus,
- to woods and hills pour forth his artless strains.
- “Cruel Alexis, heed you naught my songs?
- Have you no pity? you'll drive me to my death.
- Now even the cattle court the cooling shade