Meliboeus: Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse, You, Tityrus, entertain your sylvan muse. Round the wide world in banishment we roam, Forced from our pleasing fields and native home; While,...

Young Corydon, the unhappy shepherd swain, The fair Alexis loved, but loved in vain; And underneath the beechen shade, alone, Thus to the woods and mountains made his moan: Is this, unkind Alexis, my ...

Menalcas: Ho, swain! what shepherd owns those ragged sheep? Damoetas: Aegon’s they are: he gave them me to keep. Menalcas: Unhappy sheep of an unhappy swain! While he Neaera courts, but courts in vain...

Sicilian muse, begin a loftier strain! Though lowly shrubs, and trees that shade the plain, Delight not all; Sicilian muse, prepare To make the vocal woods deserve a consul’s care. The last great age,...

Menalcas: Since on the downs our flocks together feed, And since my voice can match your tuneful reed, Why sit we not beneath the grateful shade, Which hazels, intermixed with elms, have made? Mopsus:...

I first transferred to Rome Sicilian strains: Nor blushed the Doric Muse to dwell on Mantuan plains. But when I tried her tender voice, too young, And fighting kings and bloody battles sung, Apollo ch...

Meliboeus: Beneath a holm, repaired two jolly swains (Their sheep and goats together grazed the plains), Both young Arcadians, both alike inspired To sing, and answer as the song required. Daphnis, as...

The mournful muse of two despairing swains, The love rejected, and the lover’s pains; To which the savage Lynxes listening stood; The rivers stood on heaps, and stopped the running flood; The hungry h...

Lycidas: Ho, Moeris! whither on thy way so fast? This leads to town. Moeris: O Lycidas! at last The time is come I never thought to see, (Strange revolution for my farm and me) When the grim captain i...

Thy sacred succour, Arethusa, bring, To crown my labour (’tis the last I sing), Which proud Lycoris may with pity view: The muse is mournful, though the numbers few. Refuse me not a verse, to grief an...