XIII. To Theocritus

'Sweet, methinks, is the whispering sound of yonder pine-tree,' so,
Theocritus, with that sweet word _ade_*, didst thou begin and strike the
keynote of thy songs. 'Sweet,' and didst thou find aught of sweet, when thou,
like thy Daphnis, didst 'go down the stream, when the whirling wave closed
over the man the Muses loved, the man not hated of the Nymphs?' Perchance
below those waters of death thou didst find, like thine own Hylas, the lovely
Nereids waiting thee, Eunice, and Malis, and Nycheia with her April eyes. In
the House of Hades, Theocritus, doth there dwell aught that is fair, and can
the low light on the fields of asphodel make thee forget thy Sicily? Nay,
methinks thou hast not forgotten, and perchance for poets dead there is
prepared a place more beautiful than their dreams. It was well for the later
minstrels of another day, it was well for Ronsard and Du Bellay to desire a
dim Elysium of their own, where the sunlight comes faintly through the shadow
of the earth, where the poplars are duskier, and the waters more pale than in
the meadows of Anjou.

* Transliterated.

There, in that restful twilight, far remote from war and plot, from sword and
fire, and from religions that sharpened the steel and lit the torch, there
these learned singers would fain have wandered with their learned ladies,
satiated with life and in love with an unearthly quiet. But to thee,
Theocritus, no twilight of the Hollow Land was dear, but the high suns of
Sicily and the brown cheeks of the country maidens were happiness enough. For
thee, therefore, methinks, surely is reserved an Elysium beneath the summer of
a far-off system, with stars not ours and alien seasons. There, as Bion
prayed, shall Spring, the thrice desirable, be with thee the whole year
through, where there is neither frost, nor is the heat so heavy on men, but
all is fruitful, and all sweet things blossom, and evenly meted are darkness
and dawn. Space is wide, and there be many worlds, and suns enow, and the
Sun-god surely has had a care of his own. Little didst thou need, in thy
native land, the isle of the three capes, little didst thou need but sunlight
on land and sea. Death can have shown thee naught dearer than the fragrant
shadow of the pines, where the dry needles of the fir are strewn, or glades
where feathered ferns make 'a couch more soft than Sleep.' The short grass of
the cliffs, too, thou didst love, where thou wouldst lie, and watch, with the
tunny watcher till the deep blue sea was broken by the burnished sides of the
tunny shoal, and afoam with their gambols in the brine. There the Muses met
thee, and the Nymphs, and there Apollo, remembering his old thraldom with
Admetus, would lead once more a mortal's flocks, and listen and learn,
Theocritus,