IDYL VII. HARVEST HOME 437
I spake to gain mine ends ; and laughing light so
He said : " Accept this club, as thou 'rt indeed
A born truth-teller, shaped by heaven's own hand !
I hate your builders who would rear a house
High as Oromedon's mountain-pinnacle :
I hate your song-birds too, whose cuckoo-cry 55
Struggles (in vain) to match the Chian bard.^
But come, we '11 sing forthwith, Simichidas,
Our woodland music : and for my part I —
List, comrade, if you like the simple air
I forged among the uplands yesterday." eo
{His Song.^
He spake and paused ; and thereupon spake I.
" I too, friend Lycid, as I range the fells,
Have learned much lore and pleasant from the Nymphs,
Whose fame mayhap hath reached the throne of Zeus.
But this wherewith I '11 grace thee ranks the first : es
Thou listen, since the Muses like thee well."
(The Song.)
I ceased. He smiling sweetly as before,
Gave me the staff, " the Muses' parting gift,"
And leftward sloped tow'rd Pyxa. ΛΥβ the while,
Bent us to Phrasydeme's, Eucritus and I, 70
And baby-faced Amyntas : there we lay
Half-buried in a couch of fragrant reed
And fresh-cut vine-leaves, who so glad as we ?
A wealth of elm and poplar shook o'erhead ;
Hard by, a sacred spring flowed gurgling on 75
From the Nymph's grot, and in the sombre boughs
The sweet cicada chirped laboriously.
Hid in the thick thorn-bushes far away
1 Homer.
