He asked if we in England ever heard
The tiny beasts, half insect and half bird,
That neither eat nor sleep, but die content
When they in endless song their strength have spent.
THE LADY
Cicalas! how the name enchants me back
To the grey olives and the dust-white track!
Was there a story then?—I have forgot,
Or else by chance my Umbrians told it not.
{184}
THE POET
Lover of music, you at least should know
That these were men in ages long ago,—
Ere music was,—and then the Muses came,
And love of song took hold on them like flame.
THE LADY
Yes, I remember now the voice that speaks—
Most living still of all the deathless Greeks—
Yet tell me—how they died divinely mad,
And of the Muses what reward they had.
THE POET
They are reborn on earth, and from the first
They know not sleep, they hunger not nor thirst
Summer with glad Cicala's song they fill,
Then die, and go to haunt the Muses' Hill.