Fill ye your udders, that your lambs may have Their share of milk,—I some for cheese may save.

Then Daphnis next his tones preluding rung, Gave to the music voice, and sweetly sung.

DAPHNIS.

As yesterday I drove my heifers by,

A girl, me spying from a cavern nigh,

Exclaimed "how handsome!" I my way pursued
With down-cast eyes, nor made her answer rude.
Sweet is the breath of cows and calves-and sweet
To bask by running stream in summer heat.
Acorn the oak; and apples on the bough
Adorn the apple tree; her calf the cow;
His drove of kine, depasturing the field,
His proper honour to the cowherd yield.

Th' admiring goatherd then his judgment spake ; Sweet is thy mouth, and sweetest tones awake From thy lips, Daphnis! I would rather hear Thee sing, than suck the honey-comb, I swear. Take thou the pipe, for thine the winning song. If thou wilt teach me here my goats among

Some song,

I will that hornless goat bestow,

That ever fills the pail to overflow.

Glad Daphnis clapped his hands, and on the lawn He leaped, as round her mother leaps the fawn. But sad Menalcas fed a smouldering gloom, As grieves a girl betrothed to unknown groom. And first in song was Daphnis from that time, And wived a Naiad in his blooming prime.

IDYL IX.

THE SHEPHERD.

ARGUMENT.

The herdsman Daphnis and the shepherd Menalcas are invited by a shepherd to sing for his gratification. After they have complied with his request, he rewards Daphnis with a crook, and Menalcas with a conch. He then favours them with a stave of his own, in honour of the Muses.