IDYL IX.

LOVE RESISTLESS.

BRIGHT Cypris! goddess ever meek and mild,
Of mightiest Zeus and loveliest sea-nymph child,
Why with Immortals and our mortal kind
Art thou so wroth? what stung thy gentle mind
To bring forth Love? who wills at all to strike,
His cruel heart his person how unlike!

Winged and far-darter why didst make him, why,
That we the cruel one can never fly?

IDYL X.

FRIENDSHIP.

HAPPY is love or friendship when returned —

The lovers whose pure flames have equal burned.
Happy was Theseus, e'en in Tartarus,

With his true heart-friend, good Pirithous.
His Pylades Orestes lorn did bless
Amid th' inhospitable Chalybes.

Blest was Achilles in a friend long tried;

Him living loved, for his sake gladly died!

FRAGMENTS OF BION.

I.

ON HYACINTHUS.

PHOEBUS tried all his means, and thought of new,

Scarce knowing what he did in his distress; With nectar bathed him, with ambrosial dew; But Fate made remedies remediless.

II.

Yourself to artists always to betake,

And on yourself in nothing to rely

Is misbeseeming: friend! your own pipe makeThe work is easy, if you will but try.

III.

May Love the Muses evermore invite,

The Muses bring me Love! and to requite

My passion may they give sweet song to me,

Than which no sweeter remedy can be.

IV.

When drop on drop, they say, doth ever follow,

"Twill wear the stone at last into a hollow.

V.

I to the sandy shore and seaward slope

Will

go, and try with murmured song to bend

The cruel Galatea: my sweet hope

I'll cast away-when life itself doth end.

VI.

Artists aim

Oh, leave me not unhonoured!

And reach at excellence, provoked by Fame.

VII.

Woman's strength is in her beauty ;

Man's to bear and dare for duty.

MOSCHUS.