Along the river banks the swan, afloat,

And down the woodland glades the nightingale.

Now tendrils curl and earth bursts forth anew-
Now shepherd's pipe and fleecy flocks are gay-
Now sailors sail, and Bacchus gets his due
Now wild birds chirp and bees their toil pursue
Sing, poet, thou —and sing thy best for May.

'Ainsi,' says Sainte-Beuve, 'le printemps de Méleagre n'était pas un idéal dans lequel, comme dans presque tous nos avril et nos mai, l'imagination, éveillée par le renouveau, assemble divers traits épars, les arrange plus ou moins, et les achève . . . l'heureux poète n'a fait que copier la nature.'

Next we go back more than two hundred years to Leonidas. He is terser, but loves the spring quite as well (I must try and be terser too):

VII.

'Tis time to sail- the swallow's note is heard,
Who chattering down the soft west wind is come,
The fields are all aflower, the waves are dumb
Which erst the winnowing blast of winter stirred.

Loose cable, friend, and bid your anchor rise,

Crowd all your canvas at Priapus' hest,

Who tells you from your harbours-'Now 'twere best, Sailor, to sail upon your merchandise.'

The last of this group is Agathias' vintage song. He lived a good seven hundred years after Leonidas, and is a pagan only by imitation; but he did delicious work, with a certain lilt about it that makes translation irresistible, and here he is at his very bestfor his 'Laurel-leaves,' a series of love-songs, are lost long ago:—

VIII.

Tread we thine infinite treasure, Iacchus, the vintage

sweet!

Weave we the Bacchic measure with paces of wildering

feet.

Down flows the vast clear stream, and the ivy-wood bowls, as they float

O'er the surging nectar, seem each like a fairy boat. Close we stand as we drink and pledge in the glowing

wine

No warm Naiad, I think, need kiss in your cup or

mine!

See, o'er the wine-press bending, the maiden Roseflower beams

Splendour of loveliness sending that dazzles the flood with its gleams.

Captive the hearts of us all! straightway no man that is here

But is bound to Bacchus in thrall-to Paphia in bondage dear.

Cruel-for while at our feet he revels in bountiful rain, Longing most fleet-most sweet-is all she gives for our pain.

That is all, I am sorry to say, that Mr. Wright has quoted in his idyllic section. As I am going to cut out a few from his fifth part, I shall here insert a lovely one of Meleager's to a locust - not half well known enough (vii. 195):

IX.

Charmer of longing-counsellor of sleep!

The cornfields' chorister

Whose wings to music whirr —

Come, mimic lute, my soul in songs to steep,
Brush tiny foot and wing

In tender musicking:

Come! out of sleepless care my heart uplift,
Locust, and set love free

With your shrill minstrelsy.

And, in the morning, I will give for gift
A fresh green leek to you

And kissing drops of dew.

no

I will not apologise for the metre; Englishman could write anything but a lyric to a locust.

The third part brings us to the love-songs, of which I cannot spare any, and I must add one or two. Meleager is at the head of the poets here, of course, but I cannot bring myself to give his sweethearts their proper names, Heliodora and Zenophile, and I

prefer putting a simple English equivalent. or none at all to selecting other names, which must always be a matter of the translator's individual taste, and so rather an impertinence, although no less a name than Shelley's sanctions it.

X.

White flowers the violet now, Narcissus flowers

And drinks the dewy showers:

The lily plants arow

On hillsides grow.

But Spring's best crown, her flower of flowers, is here, My lady-love, my dear:

Most winsome bud that blows

And sweetest rose.

Proud fields, in vain ye laugh with blooms bedight!

For lo, my lady's light

Is better than the breath

Of all your wreath.

I Though his 'kissing Helena ' owes the name doubtless to the Faustus of Marlowe :

'Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies.'

["Kissing Helena, together

With my kiss, my soul beside it

Came to my lips, and there I kept it, -
For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it.
Oh cruel I to intercept it!"]

Notes in brackets are given by us, and are not a part of Mr. Hardinge's original text. ED. BIBELOT.

I shall be accused of recherche here; but it is a case where it is much better to be fanciful than to be bald, and whoever cares to substitute Zenophile' for 'my lady-love' will see how it puts the little poem out, though it has no effect upon the metre.

The next is Elizabethan too, if I may classify my poets so, but full of epithets almost impossible in English:

-

XI.

I

cry you Love-at earliest break of day

But now, even now, his wings the wanderer spread And passed away,

Leaving his empty bed.

Ho! ye that meet the boy for such is he,

Full of sweet tears and wit; a fickle sprite
Laughing and free,

With wings and quiver bright!

Yet know I not on whom to father Love-
For earth denies the wanton child his name,
And air above,

And the broad sea the same.

With each and all he lives at feud. Beware
Lest, while I speak, he cast

A dainty snare

Over your hearts at last.

But see! his hiding-place, his very self,

Close to my hand, behold, the archer lies,
A laughing elf

Within my lady's eyes.