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MELIBOEUS
or Britain, from the whole world sundered far.
Ah! shall I ever in aftertime behold
my native bounds—see many a harvest hence
with ravished eyes the lowly turf-roofed cot
where I was king? These fallows, trimmed so fair,
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some brutal soldier will possess these fields
an alien master. Ah! to what a pass
has civil discord brought our hapless folk!
For such as these, then, were our furrows sown!
Now, Meliboeus, graft your pears, now set
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your vines in order! Go, once happy flock,
my she-goats, go. Never again shall I,
stretched in green cave, behold you from afar
hang from the bushy rock; my songs are sung;
never again will you, with me to tend,
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on clover-flower, or bitter willows, browse.
TITYRUS
Yet here, this night, you might repose with me,
on green leaves pillowed: apples ripe have I,
soft chestnuts, and of curdled milk enow.
And, see, the farm-roof chimneys smoke afar,
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