XIII. To Theocritus - Page 2

while thou, like thine own Comatas, 'didst sweetly sing.'

There, methinks, I see thee as in thy happy days, 'reclined on deep beds of
fragrant lentisk, lowly strewn, and rejoicing in new stript leaves of the
vine, while far above thy head waved many a poplar, many an elm-tree, and
close at hand the sacred waters sang from the mouth of the cavern of the
nymphs.' And when night came, methinks thou wouldst flee from the merry
company and the dancing girls, from the fading crowds of roses or white
violets, from the cottabos, and the minstrelsy, and the Bibline wine, from
these thou wouldst slip away into the summer night. Then the beauty of life
and of the summer would keep thee from thy couch, and wandering away from
Syracuse by the sandhills and the sea, thou wouldst watch the low cabin,
roofed with grass, where the fishing-rods of reed were leaning against the
door, while the Mediterranean floated up her waves, and filled the waste with
sound. There didst thou see thine ancient fishermen rising ere the dawn from
their bed of dry sea-weed, and heardst them stirring, drowsy, among their
fishing gear, and heardst them tell their dreams.

Or again thou wouldst wander with dusty feet through the ways that the dust
makes silent, while the breath of the kine, as they were driven forth with the
morning, came fresh to thee, and the trailing dewy branch of honeysuckle
struck sudden on thy cheek. Thou wouldst see the Dawn awake in rose and
saffron across the waters, and Etna, grey and pale against the sky, and the
setting crescent would dip strangely in the glow, on her way to the sea. Then,
methinks, thou wouldst murmur, like thine own Simaetha, the love-lorn witch,
'Farewell, Selene, bright and fair; farewell, ye other stars, that follow the
wheels of the quiet Night.' Nay, surely it was in such an hour that thou didst
behold the girl as she burned the laurel leaves and the barley grain, and
melted the waxen image, and called on Selene to bring her lover home. Even so,
even now, in the islands of Greece, the setting Moon may listen to the prayers
of maidens. 'Bright golden Moon, that now art near the waters, go thou and
salute my lover, he that stole my love, and that kissed me, sayin;g "Never
will I leave thee." And lo, he hath left me as men leave a field reaped and
gleaned, like a church where none cometh to pray, like a city desolate.'

So the girls still sing in Greece, for though the Temples have fallen, and the
wandering shepherds sleep beneath the broken columns of the god's house in
Selinus, yet these ancient fires burn still to the old divinities in the
shrines of the hearths of the peasants. It is none of the new creeds that cry,
in the dirge of the Sicilian shepherds of our time, 'Ah, light of mine eyes,
what