BION AND MOSCHUS.

THE TEACHER TAUGHT.

BION.

I DREAMT I saw by me great Venus stand,
Leading a nodding infant by the hand,
And that she said to me familiarly,

Take Love, and teach him how to play to me.
She vanished then. And I, poor fool, must turn
To teach the boy, as if he wished to learn;
I taught him all the pastoral songs I knew,
And used to sing; and I informed him too

How Pan found out the pipe, Pallas the flute,
Phoebus the lyre, and Mercury the lute.
But not a jot for all my words cared he,
But lo! fell singing his love-songs to me,
And told me of the loves of gods and men,
And of his mother's doings:-and so then,
I forgot all I taught him, for my part,
But all he taught to me, I learnt by heart.

TO THE EVENING STAR.

Attributed by some to MOSCHUS, and by others to BION.

HESPER, dear Hesper, golden lovely light,
Of Venus,-presence in the dark blue night,-
Only less lovely than the moon as far
As thou art bright to every other star;

Hail, loved one; and as she begins to day

To

go

down early, hold me from above

Thy light, and let me be supplied by thee:-
I come not forth to steal or to way-lay;
I go to sup with one that waits for me;-

I love; and lovers should be helped with love.

ON THE DEATH OF BION,
THE HERDSMAN OF LOVE.

MOSCHUS.

MOAN with me, moan, ye woods and Dorian waters, And weep, ye rivers, the delightful Bion;

Ye plants, now stand in tears; murmur, ye groves; Ye flowers, sigh forth your odours with sad buds ; Flush deep, ye roses and anemones;

And more than ever now, oh hyacinth, shew

Your written sorrows-the sweet singer's dead.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.

Ye nightingales, that mourn in the thick leaves,

Tell the Sicilian streams of Arethuse,