Of haymakers or herdsmen is thy match
    At piping:  and my soul is glad thereat. 
    Yet, to speak sooth, I think to rival thee. 
    Now look, this road holds holiday to-day: 
    For banded brethren solemnise a feast
    To richly-dight Demeter, thanking her
    For her good gifts:  since with no grudging hand
    Hath the boon goddess filled the wheaten floors. 
    So come:  the way, the day, is thine as mine: 
    Try we our woodcraft—­each may learn from each. 
    I am, as thou, a clarion-voice of song;
    All hail me chief of minstrels.  But I am not,
    Heaven knows, o’ercredulous:  no, I scarce can yet
    (I think) outvie Philetas, nor the bard
    Of Samos, champion of Sicilian song. 
    They are as cicadas challenged by a frog.”

      I spake to gain mine ends; and laughing light
    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
    Struggles (in vain) to match the Chian bard. 
    But come, we’ll 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.

[Sings] Safe be my true-love convoyed o’er the main To Mitylene—­though the southern blast Chase the lithe waves, while westward slant the Kids, Or low above the verge Orion stand—­ If from Love’s furnace she will rescue me, For Lycidas is parched with hot desire.  Let halcyons lay the sea-waves and the winds, Northwind and Westwind, that in shores far-off Flutters the seaweed—­halcyons, of all birds Whose prey is on the waters, held most dear By the green Nereids:  yea let all things smile On her to Mitylene voyaging, And in fair harbour may she ride at last.  I on that day, a chaplet woven of dill Or rose or simple violet on my brow, Will draw the wine of Pteleas from the cask Stretched by the ingle.  They shall roast me beans, And elbow-deep in thyme and asphodel And quaintly-curling parsley shall be piled My bed of rushes, where in royal ease I sit and, thinking of my darling, drain With stedfast lip the liquor to the dregs.  I’ll have a pair of pipers, shepherds both, This from Acharnae, from Lycope that; And Tityrus shall be near me and shall sing How the swain Daphnis loved the stranger-maid; And how he ranged the fells, and how the oaks (Such oaks as Himera’s banks are green withal) Sang dirges o’er him waning fast away Like snow on Athos, or on Haemus high, Or Rhodope, or utmost Caucasus.  And he shall sing me how the big chest held (All through the maniac malice of his lord) A living goatherd:  how the round-faced bees, Lured from their meadow by the cedar-smell, Fed him with daintiest flowers, because the Muse Had made his throat a well-spring of sweet song.  Happy