Daphnis, thou slumberest on the leaf-strown lea,

Thy frame at rest, thy springes newly spread

O'er the fell-side. But two are hunting thee:

Pan, and Priapus with his fair young head

Hung with wan ivy. See! they come, they leap

Into thy lair—fly, fly,—shake off the coil of sleep!

For yon oaken avenue, swain, you must steer,

Where a statue of figwood, you'll see, has been set:

It has never been barked, has three legs and no ear;

But I think there is life in the patriarch yet.

He is handsomely shrined within fair chapel-walls;

Where, fringed with sweet cypress and myrtle and bay,

A stream ever-fresh from the rock's hollow falls,

And the ringleted vine her ripe store doth display:

And the blackbirds, those shrill-piping songsters of spring,

Wake the echoes with wild inarticulate song:

And the notes of the nightingale plaintively ring,

As she pours from her dun throat her lay sweet and strong.

Sitting there, to Priapus, the gracious one, pray

That the lore he has taught me I soon may unlearn:

Say I'll give him a kid, and in case he says nay

To this offer, three victims to him will I burn;

A kid, a fleeced ram, and a lamb sleek and fat;

He will listen, mayhap, to my prayers upon that.

Prythee, sing something sweet to me—you that can play

First and second at once. Then I too will essay

To croak on the pipes: and yon lad shall salute

Our ears with a melody breathed through his flute.

In the cave by the green oak our watch we will keep,

And goatish old Pan we'll defraud of his sleep.

Poor Thyrsis! What boots it to weep out thine eyes?

Thy kid was a fair one, I own:

But the wolf with his cruel claw made her his prize,

And to darkness her spirit hath flown.

Do the dogs cry? What boots it? In spite of their cries

There is left of her never a bone.

Far as Miletus travelled PÆan's son;

There to be guest of Nicias, guest of one

Who heals all sickness; and who still reveres

Him, for his sake this cedarn image rears.

The sculptor's hand right well did Nicias fill;

And here the sculptor lavished all his skill.

Friend, Ortho of Syracuse gives thee this charge:

Never venture out, drunk, on a wild winter's night.

I did so and died. My possessions were large;

Yet the turf that I'm clad with is strange to me quite.

Man, husband existence: ne'er launch on the sea

Out of season: our tenure of life is but frail.

Think of poor Cleonicus: for Phasos sailed he

From the valleys of Syria, with many a bale:

With many a bale, ocean's tides he would stem

When the Pleiads were sinking; and he sank with them.

To you this marble statue, maids divine,

Xenocles raised, one tribute unto nine.

Your votary all admit him: by this skill

He gat him fame: and you he honours still.

Here the shrewd physiognomist Eusthenes lies,

Who could tell all your thoughts by a glance at your eyes.

A stranger, with strangers his honoured bones rest;

They valued sweet song, and he gave them his best.

All the honours of death doth the poet possess:

If a small one, they mourned for him nevertheless.

The precentor Damoteles, Bacchus, exalts

Your tripod, and, sweetest of deities, you.

He was champion of men, if his boyhood had faults;

And he ever loved honour and seemliness too.

This statue, stranger, scan with earnest gaze;

And, home returning, say "I have beheld

Anacreon, in Teos; him whose lays

Were all unmatched among our sires of eld."

Say further: "Youth and beauty pleased him best;"

And all the man will fairly stand exprest.

Thou hast gone to the grave, and abandoned thy son

Yet a babe, thy own manhood but scarcely begun.

Thou art throned among gods: and thy country will take

Thy child to her heart, for his brave father's sake.

Prove, traveller, now, that you honour the brave

Above the poltroon, when he's laid in the grave,

By murmuring 'Peace to Eurymedon dead.'

The turf should lie light on so sacred a head.

Aphrodite stands here; she of heavenly birth;

Not that base one who's wooed by the children of earth.

'Tis a goddess; bow down. And one blemishless all,

ChrysogonÈ, placed her in Amphicles' hall:

ChrysogonÈ's heart, as her children, was his,

And each year they knew better what happiness is.

For, Queen, at life's outset they made thee their friend;

Religion is policy too in the end.

Read these lines to Epicharmus. They are Dorian, as was he

The sire of Comedy.

Of his proper self bereavÈd, Bacchus, unto thee we rear

His brazen image here;

We in Syracuse who sojourn, elsewhere born. Thus much we can

Do for our countryman,

Mindful of the debt we owe him. For, possessing ample store

Of legendary lore,

Many a wholesome word, to pilot youths and maids thro' life, he spake:

We honour him for their sake.

The babe Medeius to his Thracian nurse

This stone—inscribed To Cleita—reared in the midhighway.

Her modest virtues oft shall men rehearse;

Who doubts it? is not 'Cleita's worth' a proverb to this day?

Pause, and scan well Archilochus, the bard of elder days,

By east and west

Alike's confest

The mighty lyrist's praise.

Delian Apollo loved him well, and well the sister-choir:

His songs were fraught

With subtle thought,

And matchless was his lyre.

He whom ye gaze on was the first

That in quaint song the deeds rehearsed

Of him whose arm was swift to smite,

Who dared the lion to the fight:

That tale, so strange, so manifold,

Peisander of Cameirus told.

For this good work, thou may'st be sure,

His country placed him here,

In solid brass that shall endure

Through many a month and year.

Behold Hipponax' burialplace,

A true bard's grave.

Approach it not, if you're a base

And base-born knave.

But if your sires were honest men

And unblamed you,

Sit down thereon serenely then,

And eke sleep too.

Tuneful Hipponax rests him here.

Let no base rascal venture near.

Ye who rank high in birth and mind

Sit down—and sleep, if so inclined.

Not my namesake of Chios, but I, who belong

To the Syracuse burghers, have sung you my song.

I'm Praxagoras' son by Philinna the fair,

And I never asked praise that was owing elsewhere.