| |
| FROM the forests and highlands | |
| We come, we come; | |
| From the river-girt islands, | |
| Where loud waves are dumb, | |
| Listening to my sweet pipings. | 5 |
| The wind in the reeds and the rushes, | |
| The bees on the bells of thyme, | |
| The birds on the myrtle, bushes, | |
| The cicale above in the lime, | |
| And the lizards below in the grass, | 10 |
| Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, | |
| Listening to my sweet pipings. | |
| |
| Liquid Peneus was flowing, | |
| And all dark Tempe lay | |
| In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing | 15 |
| The light of the dying day, | |
| Speeded by my sweet pipings. | |
| The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns, | |
| And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, | |
| To the edge of the moist river-lawns, | 20 |
| And the brink of the dewy caves, | |
| And all that did then attend and follow, | |
| Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, | |
| With envy of my sweet pipings. | |
| |
| I sang of the dancing stars, | 25 |
| I sang of the dædal earth, | |
| And of heaven, and the giant wars, | |
| And love, and death, and birth. | |
| And then I changed my pipings— | |
| Singing how down the vale of Mænalus | 30 |
| I pursued a maiden, and clasp’d a reed: | |
| Gods and men, we are all deluded thus; | |
| It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed. | |
| All wept—as I think both ye now would, | |
| If envy or age had not frozen your blood— | 35 |
| At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. | |
| |
