Eclogues

Virgil

Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

  1. Dark is the violet, dark the hyacinth—
  2. among the willows, 'neath the limber vine,
  3. reclining would my love have lain with me,
  4. Phyllis plucked garlands, or Amyntas sung.
  5. Here are cool springs, soft mead and grove, Lycoris;
  6. here might our lives with time have worn away.
  7. But me mad love of the stern war-god holds
  8. armed amid weapons and opposing foes.
  9. Whilst thou—Ah! might I but believe it not!—
  10. alone without me, and from home afar,
  11. look'st upon Alpine snows and frozen Rhine.
  12. Ah! may the frost not hurt thee, may the sharp
  13. and jagged ice not wound thy tender feet!
  14. I will depart, re-tune the songs I framed
  15. in verse Chalcidian to the oaten reed
  16. of the Sicilian swain. Resolved am I