9–10
LYCIDAS
Set down the kids, yet shall we reach the town;
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or, if we fear the night may gather rain
ere we arrive, then singing let us go,
our way to lighten; and, that we may thus
go singing, I will case you of this load.
MOERIS
Cease, boy, and get we to the work in hand:
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we shall sing better when himself is come.
This now, the very latest of my toils,
vouchsafe me, Arethusa! needs must I
sing a brief song to Gallus—brief, but yet
such as Lycoris' self may fitly read.
Who would not sing for Gallus? So, when thou
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beneath Sicanian billows glidest on,
may Doris blend no bitter wave with thine,
begin! The love of Gallus be our theme,
and the shrewd pangs he suffered, while, hard by,
the flat-nosed she-goats browse the tender brush.
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We sing not to deaf ears; no word of ours
but the woods echo it. What groves or lawns
held you, ye Dryad-maidens, when for love—
