_Meliboeus_-- I do not begrudge you repose; I simply admit I'm confounded To find you unscathed of the woes of pillage and tumult and battle; To exile and hardship devote and by merciless enemies hounded, I drag at this wretched old goat and coax on my famishing cattle. Oh, often the omens presaged the horrors which now overwhelm me-- But, come, if not elsewise engaged, who is this good deity, tell me! _Tityrus_ (reminiscently)-- The city--the city called Rome, with, my head full of herding and tillage, I used to compare with my home, these pastures wherein you now wander; But I didn't take long to find out that the city surpasses the village As the cypress surpasses the sprout that thrives in the thicket out yonder. _Meliboeus_-- Tell me, good gossip, I pray, what led you to visit the city? _Tityrus_-- Liberty! which on a day regarded my lot with compassion My age and distresses, forsooth, compelled that proud mistress to pity, That had snubbed the attentions of youth in most reprehensible fashion. Oh, happy, thrice happy, the day when the cold Galatea forsook me, And equally happy, I say, the hour when that other girl took me! _Meliboeus_ (slyly, as if addressing the damsel)-- So now, Amaryllis the truth of your ill-disguised grief I discover! You pined for a favorite youth with cityfied damsels hobnobbing. And soon your surroundings partook of your grief for your recusant lover-- The pine trees, the copse and the brook for Tityrus ever went sobbing. _Tityrus_-- Meliboeus, what else could I do? Fate doled me no morsel of pity; My toil was all in vain the year through, no matter how earnest or clever, Till, at last, came that god among men--that king from that wonderful city, And quoth: "Take your homesteads again--they are yours and your assigns forever!" _Meliboeus_-- Happy, oh, happy old man! rich in what's better than money-- Rich in contentment, you can gather sweet peace by mere listening; Bees with soft murmurings go hither and thither for honey. Cattle all gratefully low in pastures where fountains are glistening-- Hark! in the shade of that rock the pruner with singing rejoices-- The dove in the elm and the flock of wood-pigeons hoarsely repining, The plash of the sacred cascade--ah, restful, indeed, are these voices, Tityrus, all in the shade of your wide-spreading beech-tree reclining! _Tityrus_-- And he who insures this to me--oh, craven I were not to love him! Nay, rather the fish of the sea shall vacate the water they swim in, The stag quit his bountiful grove to graze in the ether above him. While folk antipodean rove along with their children and women!