Eclogues

Virgil

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

  1. bewitch me—what if swart Amyntas be?
  2. Dark is the violet, dark the hyacinth—
  3. among the willows, 'neath the limber vine,
  4. reclining would my love have lain with me,
  5. Phyllis plucked garlands, or Amyntas sung.
  6. Here are cool springs, soft mead and grove, Lycoris;
  7. here might our lives with time have worn away.
  8. But me mad love of the stern war-god holds
  9. armed amid weapons and opposing foes.
  10. Whilst thou—Ah! might I but believe it not!—
  11. alone without me, and from home afar,
  12. look'st upon Alpine snows and frozen Rhine.
  13. Ah! may the frost not hurt thee, may the sharp
  14. and jagged ice not wound thy tender feet!
  15. I will depart, re-tune the songs I framed
  16. in verse Chalcidian to the oaten reed
  17. of the Sicilian swain. Resolved am I
  18. in the woods, rather, with wild beasts to couch,
  19. and bear my doom, and character my love
  20. upon the tender tree-trunks: they will grow,