EPIGRAMS.

I.

THICK-GROWING thyme, and roses wet with dew

Are sacred to the sisterhood divine

Of Helicon: the laurel, dark of hue,

The Delphian laurel, Pythian Pæan, thine!

For thee shall bleed the white ram which doth chew The downward hanging branch of turpentine.

II.

To Pan the fair-cheeked Daphnis, whose red lip

To his sweet pipe the pastoral wild notes married, Offered his pipe, crook, fawn-skin, spear, and scrip, Wherein he formerly his apples carried.

III.

Daphnis! thou sleepest on the leaf-strown ground-
Thy hunting-nets are on the mountain pight:
Thee Pan is hunting-thee Priapus crowned
With ivy and its golden berries bright:
Into the cavern both together bound:

Up! shake off sleep, and safety find in flight.

IV.

Where yon oak-thicket by the lane appears,
A statue newly made of fig is seen,

Three-legged, the bark on still, but without ears,
Witness of many a prank upon the green.

A sacred grove runs round; soft-bubbling near,
A spring perennial from its pebbly seat
Makes many a tree to shoot and flourish there,
The laurel, myrtle, and the cypress sweet;

And the curled vine with clusters there doth float: Their sharp shrill tones the vernal blackbirds ring,

And yellow nightingales take up the note,

And warbling to the others sweetly sing.

There, goatherd! sit, and offer up for me
Prayer to the rural god: if from my love
He only will consent to set me free,

A kid shall bleed in honour of his grove.

If I must love, then should my love succeed
By his good grace, the fattest lamb I rear,
A heifer, and a ram, for him shall bleed:

Freely I offer, may he kindly hear!

V.

For the Nymphs' sake thy double flute provoke

To breathe some sweetness: I the harp will take,

And make it vocal to the quill's quick stroke ;

And Daphnis from the pipe sweet sounds will shake. Come! let us stand beside the thick-leaved oak, Behind the cave, and goat-foot Pan awake.

VI.

What boots it thee to weep away both eyes,
Sad Thyrsis of thy pretty kid bereft :
The wild wolf seizes it, and bounding flies,
And the dog barks-at his successful theft.

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What profit now from weeping can arise?

For of the kid nor bone nor dust is left.

VII.

ON A STATUE OF ASCLEPIUS.

The son of Pæan to Miletus came,

And with the best physician Nicias staid, Who, daily kindling sacrificial flame,

From fragrant cedar had this statue made. The highest price was paid Eëtion's fame, Who all his skill upon the work outlaid.

VIII.

Stranger! the Syracusian Orthon gives thee charge:
Walk not o' winter nights, with many a cup
Reeling from this, instead of country large,
I have a foreign mound--that shuts me up.

IX.

Man! spare thy life, nor out of season be
A voyager: man's term of life soon flies.
For Thasus Cleonicus put to sea

From Colesyria with his merchandise:

What time the Pleiad hastes to set, went he,
And, with the Pleiad, sunk-no more to rise.

Το

X.

you this marble statue, Muses nine! Xenocles placed; the harmonist, whose skill

No man denies: owning your aid divine,
He by your aid is unforgotten still.

XI.

This is the monument of Eusthenes,

Who from one's face his mind and temper knew.

In a strange land all rites the dead can please

He had and he was dear to poets too.

Nothing was wanting to his obsequies :

Homeless, he had dear friends and mourners true.

XII.

Sweet Dionysus! sweetest god of all!

To thee this tripod and thy statue placed

The leader of the choir, Damoteles.
Only small praise did on his boyhood fall,
But now his manhood is with victory graced,

And more, that him virtue and honour please.