Classic Poem

There was a hill
which rose up to a level plateau, high
and beautiful with green grass; and there was
not any shade for comfort on the top
and there on that luxuriant grass the bard,
while heaven-inspired reclined, and struck
such harmonies on his sweet lyre that shade
most grateful to the hill was spread around.
Strong trees came up there — the Chaonian oak
the Heliads' poplar, and the lofty-branched
deep mast-tree, the soft linden and the beech,
the brittle hazel, and the virgin laurel-tree,
the ash for strong spears, the smooth silver-fir,
the flex bent with acorns and the plane,
the various tinted maple and with those,
the lotus and green willows from their streams,
evergreen box and slender tamarisks,
rich myrtles of two colors and the tine,
bending with green-blue berries: and you, too,
the pliant-footed ivy, came along
with tendril-branching grape-vines, and the elm
all covered with twist-vines, the mountain-ash,
pitch-trees and arbute-trees of blushing fruit,
the bending-palm prized after victories,
the bare-trunk pine of tufted foliage,
bristled upon the top, a pleasant sight
delightful to the Mother of the Gods;
since Attis dear to Cybele, exchanged
his human form which hardened in that tree.