A sorrowing friend, and of the tuneful kind. Go, seek your home, my lambs, my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. 50 Yes, Damon! such thy sure reward shall be, But ah, what doom awaits unhappy me? Who, now, my pains and perils shall divide, As thou wast wont, for ever at my side, Both when the rugged frost annoy'd our feet, And when the herbage all was parch'd with heat, Whether the grim wolf's ravage to prevent Or the huge lion's, arm'd with darts we went? Whose converse, now, shall calm my stormy day, With charming song who, now, beguile my way? 60 Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. In whom shall I confide? Whose counsel find A balmy med'cine for my troubled mind? Or whose discourse with innocent delight Shall fill me now, and cheat the wint'ry night, While hisses on my hearth the pulpy pear, And black'ning chesnuts start and crackle there, While storms abroad the dreary meadows whelm, And the wind thunders thro' the neighb'ring elm? 70 Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. Or who, when summer suns their summit reach, And Pan sleeps hidden by the shelt'ring beech, When shepherds disappear, Nymphs seek the sedge, And the stretch'd rustic snores beneath the hedge, Who then shall render me thy pleasant vein Of Attic wit, thy jests, thy smiles again? Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. 80 Where glens and vales are thickest overgrown With tangled boughs, I wander now alone Till night descend, while blust'ring wind and show'r Beat on my temples through the shatter'd bow'r. Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. Alas, what rampant weeds now shame my fields, And what a mildew'd crop the furrow yields! My rambling vines unwedded to the trees Bear shrivel'd grapes, my myrtles fail to please, 90 Nor please me more my flocks; they, slighted, turn Their unavailing looks on me, and mourn. Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. Aegon invites me to the hazel grove, Amyntas, on the river's bank to rove, And young Alphesiboeus to a seat Where branching elms exclude the midday heat-- "Here fountains spring-here mossy hillocks rise--" "Here Zephyr whispers and the stream replies--" 100 Thus each persuades, but deaf to ev'ry call I gain the thickets, and escape them all. Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. Then Mopsus said (the same who reads so well The voice of birds, and what the stars foretell, For He by chance had noticed my return) What means thy sullen mood, this deep concern? Ah Thyrsis! thou art either crazed with love, Or some sinister influence from above, 110 Dull Saturn's influence oft the shepherd rue, His leaden shaft oblique has pierced thee through.