Classic Poem

DAPHNIS . O Polyphemus, while your flocks you keep,
With apples Galatea pelts your sheep,
And calls you goatherd, and ungrateful swain;
Meanwhile you pipe in sweetly warbled strain,
Nor see the wild nymph, senseless as a log;
And lo! again she pelts your faithful dog:
List! list! he barks, and in a strange amaze
His dancing shadow in the sea surveys:
Ah! call him back, lest on the maid he leap,
And tear her limbs emerging from the deep.
Lo! where she wantons, frolic, light and fair,
As down of bearsfoot in soft summer air;
And, still impell'd by strange, capricious Fate,
Flies those that love, and follows those that hate
In vain the blandishments of love she plies,
For faults are beauties in a lover's eyes.
Thus Daphnis sung, Damœtas thus reply'd:
DAMOETAS . By mighty Pan, the wily nymph I spy'd
Pelting my flock, I saw with this one eye—
May heaven preserve its lustre till I die:
Though Telemus presages ills to come;
Let him reserve them for his sons at home.
To teaze, I seem regardless of her game,
And drop some items of another flame:
Soon to her ears the spreading rumour flies,
For envy then and jealousy she dies;
And furious, rising from her azure waves,
She searches all my folds, and all my caves:
And then my dog, obedient to command,
Barks as she walks, and bays her off the strand:
For when I lov'd, he wagg'd his tale with glee,
Fawn'd, whin'd, and loll'd his head upon her knee.
This practice shortly will successful prove,
She'll surely send me tidings of her love.