DAMŒTAS.
The nightly wolf is baneful to the fold,
Storms to the wheat, to buds the bitter cold;
But, from my frowning fair, more ills I find,
Than from the wolves, and storms, and winter-wind.
MENALCAS.
The kids with pleasure browze the bushy plain;
The showers are grateful to the swelling grain;
To teeming ewes the sallow's tender tree;
But, more than all the world, my love to me.
DAMŒTAS.
Pollio my rural verse vouchsafes to read:
A heifer, Muses, for your patron breed.
MENALCAS.
My Pollio writes himself:—a bull be bred,
With spurning heels, and with a butting head.
DAMŒTAS.
Who Pollio loves, and who his Muse admires,
Let Pollio's fortune crown his full desires.
Let myrrh instead of thorn his fences fill,
And showers of honey from his oaks distil.