Eclogues
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- our yearly vows, and when with lustral rites
- the fields we hallow. Long as the wild boar
- shall love the mountain-heights, and fish the streams,
- while bees on thyme and crickets feed on dew,
- thy name, thy praise, thine honour, shall endure.
- Even as to Bacchus and to Ceres, so
- to thee the swain his yearly vows shall make;
- and thou thereof, like them, shalt quittance claim.”
- How, how repay thee for a song so rare?
- For not the whispering south-wind on its way
- so much delights me, nor wave-smitten beach,
- nor streams that race adown their bouldered beds.
- First this frail hemlock-stalk to you I give,
- which taught me “Corydon with love was fired
- for fair Alexis,” ay, and this beside,
- “Who owns the flock?—Meliboeus?”
- But take you
- this shepherd's crook, which, howso hard he begged,
- antigenes, then worthy to be loved,
- prevailed not to obtain—with brass, you see,