To this, one pathway gently winding leads,
Where march a train with baskets on their heads,
Fair maids and blooming youths, that smiling bear
The purple product of the autumnal year.
To these a youth awakes the warbling strings,
Whose tender lay the fate of Linus[1] sings;
In measured dance behind him move the train,
Tune soft the voice, and answer to the strain.
Here, herds of oxen march, erect and bold,
Rear high their horns, and seem to low in gold,
And speed to meadows, on whose sounding shores
A rapid torrent through the rushes roars:
Four golden herdsmen as their guardians stand,
And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band.
Two lions rushing from the wood appeared,
And seized a bull, the master of the herd;
He roared : in vain the dogs, the men, withstood;
They tore his flesh, and drank the sable blood.
The dogs, oft cheered in vain, desert the prey,
Dread the grim terrors, and at distance bay.
Next this, the eye the art of Vulcan leads
Deep through fair forests, and a length of meads;
And stalls, and folds, and scattered cots between;
And fleecy flocks, that whiten all the scene.
A figured dance succeeds: such once was seen
In lofty Gnossus, for the Cretan queen,
Formed by Dsedalean art: a comely band
Of youths and maidens, bounding hand in hand;
The maids in soft cymars of linen dressed:
The youths all graceful in the glossy vest;
Of those the locks with flowery wreaths inrolled,
Of these the sides adorned with swords of gold,
That, glittering gay, from silver belts depend.
Now all at once they rise, at once descend,
With well-taught feet: now shape, in oblique ways,
Confusedly regular, the moving maze:
Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they spring,
And undistingushed blend the flying ring:
So whirls a wheel, in giddy circle tossed,
And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are lost.
The gazing multitudes admire around;
Two active tumblers in the centre bound;
Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they bend,
And general songs the sprightly revel end.
Thus the broad shield complete the artist crowned
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round:
In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole.
- ↑ The national dirge, named after a legendary Linus.
