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 herd their needful food refuse⁠—
Of two despairing swains, I sing the mournful muse.

Great Pollio! thou, for whom thy Rome prepares
The ready triumph of thy finished wars,
Whether Timavus or the Illyrian coast,
Whatever land or sea thy presence boast:
Is there an hour in fate reserved for me,
To sing thy deeds in numbers worthy thee?
In numbers like to thine, could I rehearse
Thy lofty tragic scenes, thy laboured verse;
The world another Sophocles in thee,
Another Homer should behold in me.
Amidst thy laurels let this ivy twine:
Thine was my earliest muse; my latest shall be thine.

Scarce from our upper world the shades withdrew,
Scarce were the flocks refreshed with morning dew,
When Damon, stretched beneath an olive shade,
And wildly staring upwards, thus inveighed
Against the conscious gods, and cursed the cruel maid:
“Star of the morning, why dost thou delay?
Come, Lucifer, drive on the lagging day,
While I my Nisa’s perjured faith deplore⁠—
Witness, ye powers, by whom she falsely swore!
The gods, alas! are witnesses in vain:
Yet shall my dying breath to heaven complain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.

“The pines of Maenalus, the vocal grove,
Are ever full of verse, and full of love;
They hear the hinds, they hear their god complain,
Who suffered not the reeds to rise in vain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.

“Mopsus triumphs: he weds the willing fair!
When such is Nisa’s choice, what lover can despair?
Now griffons join with mares; another age
Shall see the hound and hind their thirst assuage,
Promiscuous at the spring. Prepare the lights,
O Mopsus! and perform the bridal rites.
Scatter thy nuts among the scrambling boys:
Thine is the night, and thine the nuptial joys.
For thee the sun declines: O happy swain!
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.

“O, Nisa! justly to thy choice condemned!
Whom hast thou taken, whom hast thou contemned?
For him thou hast refused my browsing herd,
Scorned my thick eyebrows, and my shaggy beard.
Unhappy Damon sighs and sings in vain,
While Nisa thinks no god regards a lover’s pain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.

“I viewed thee first (how fatal was the view!)
And led thee where the ruddy wildings grew,
High on the planted hedge, and wet with morning dew.
Then scarce the bending branches I could win;
The callow down began to clothe my chin.
I saw; I perished; yet indulged my pain.
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.

“I know thee, Love! in deserts thou wert bred,
And at the dugs of savage tigers fed;
Alien of birth, usurper of the plains!
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strains.

“Relentless Love the cruel mother led
The blood of her unhappy babes to shed:
Love lent the sword; the mother struck the blow;
Inhuman she; but more inhuman thou:
Alien of birth, usurper of the plains!
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strains.

“Old doting nature change thy course anew;
And let the trembling lamb the wolf pursue:
Let oaks now glitter with Hesperian fruit,
And purple daffodils from alder shoot;
Fat amber let the tamarisk distill,
And hooting owls contend with swans in skill;
Hoarse Tityrus strive with Orpheus in the woods,
And challenge famed Arion on the floods.
Or, oh! let nature cease, and chaos reign!
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.

“Let earth be sea; and let the whelming tide
The lifeless limbs of luckless Damon hide:
Farewell, ye secret woods, and shady groves,
Haunts of my youth, and conscious of my loves!
From yon high cliff I plunge into the main:
Take the last present of thy dying swain:
And cease, my silent flute, the sweet Maenalian strain.”

Now take your turns, ye muses, to rehearse
His friend’s complaints, and mighty magic verse.

“Bring running water: bind those altars round
With fillets, and with vervain strew the ground:
Make fat with frankincense the sacred fires,
To reinflame my Daphnis with desires.
’Tis done; we want but verse. Restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.

“Pale Phoebe, drawn by verse, from heaven descends;
And Circe changed with charms Ulysses’ friends.
Verse breaks the ground, and penetrates the brake,
And in the winding cavern splits the snake.
Verse fires the frozen veins. Restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.

“Around his waxen image first I wind
Three woolen fillets, of three colours joined;
Thrice bind about his thrice-devoted head,
Which round the sacred altar thrice is led.
Unequal numbers please the gods. My charms,
Restore my Daphnis to my longing arms.

“Knit with three knots the fillets: knit them strait:
And say, ‘These knots to love I consecrate!’
Haste, Amaryllis, haste! Restore, my charms,
My lovely Daphnis to my longing arms.

“As fire this figure hardens, made of clay,
And this of wax with fire consumes away;
Such let the soul of cruel Daphnis be⁠—
Hard to the rest of women, soft to me.
Crumble the sacred mole of salt and corn:
Next in the fire the bays with brimstone burn
And, while it crackles in the sulphur, say,
‘This I for Daphnis burn; thus Daphnis burn away!
This laurel is his fate.’ Restore, my charms,
My lovely Daphnis to my longing arms.

“As when the raging heifer, through the grove,
Stung with desire, pursues her wandering love;
Faint at the last, she seeks the weedy pools,
To quench her thirst, and on the rushes rolls,
Careless of night, unmindful to return;
Such fruitless fires perfidious Daphnis burn,
While I so scorn his love! Restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.

“These garments once were his, and left to me,
The pledges of his promised loyalty,
Which underneath my threshold I bestow.
These pawns, O sacred earth! to me my Daphnis owe.
As these were his, so mine is he. My charms,
Restore their lingering lord to my deluded arms.

“These poisonous plants, for magic use designed
(The noblest and the best of all the baneful kind),
Old Moeris brought me from the Pontic strand,
And culled the mischief of a bounteous land.
Smeared with these powerful juices, on the plain
He howls a wolf among the hungry train;
And oft the mighty necromancer boasts,
With these to call from tombs the stalking ghosts,
And from the roots to tear the standing corn,
Which, whirled aloft, to distant fields is borne:
Such is the strength of spells. Restore, my charms,
My lingering Daphnis to my longing arms.

“Bear out these ashes; cast them in the brook;
Cast backwards o’er your head; nor turn your look:
Since neither gods nor godlike verse can move,
Break out, ye smothered fires, and kindle smothered love.
Exert your utmost power, my lingering charms;
And force my Daphnis to my longing arms.

“See, while my last endeavours I delay,
The waking ashes rise, and round our altars play!
Run to the threshold, Amaryllis⁠—hark!
Our Hylax opens, and begins to bark.
Good heaven! may lovers what they wish believe?
Or dream their wishes, and those dreams deceive?
No more! my Daphnis comes! no more, my charms!
He comes, he runs, he leaps to my desiring arms.”