And won, while yet in topmost youth, a Naiad for his bride.”
C. S. Calverley.
Bion of Smyrna, a contemporary of Theocritus, emigrated to Sicily for the purpose of studying pastoral poetry in its native haunts. What little we know respecting his life is gathered from the elegy written by his pupil, the delicate and graceful Moschus, a bucolic poet of Syracuse ranked with Theocritus and Bion, but inferior to both. “The Lament for Bion” intimates that he died from the effects of poison, administered perhaps by jealous rivals.
Bion’s love-songs and pastorals are characterized by sweetness and finish; they are less life-like, however, than those of Theocritus. The “Lament for Adonis" is the poet’s best effort; but as it is uninteresting to the general reader, we give a free paraphrase of
THE BIRD-CATCHER AND LOVE.
A young bird-catcher sat ’neath a wide-spreading tree,
Where the breath of the summer breeze sported free,
Looking round on the neighboring bushes with care,
To see if a songster were lingering there.
At length, in the distance, he something espies—