Or any nymph or shepherd on the plain, (Though Phyllis brown, though black Amyntas were, Are violets not sweet, because not fair?) Beneath the sallows and the shady vine, My loves had mixed their pliant limbs with mine: Phyllis with myrtle wreaths had crowned my hair, And soft Amyntas sung away my care. Come, see what pleasures in our plains abound; The woods, the fountains, and the flowery ground. As you are beauteous, were you half so true, Here could I live, and love, and die with only you. Now I to fighting fields am sent afar, And strive in winter camps with toils of war; While you, (alas, that I should find it so!) } To shun my sight, your native soil forego, } And climb the frozen Alps, and tread the eternal snow. } Ye frosts and snows, her tender body spare! Those are not limbs for icicles to tear. For me, the wilds and deserts are my choice; The Muses, once my care; my once harmonious voice. There will I sing, forsaken, and alone: The rocks and hollow caves shall echo to my moan. The rind of every plant her name shall know; And, as the rind extends, the love shall grow. Then on Arcadian mountains will I chase (Mixed with the woodland nymphs) the savage race; Nor cold shall hinder me, with horns and hounds To thrid the thickets, or to leap the mounds. And now methinks o'er steepy rocks I go, And rush through sounding woods, and bend the Parthian bow; As if with sports my sufferings I could ease, Or by my pains the god of love appease. My frenzy changes: I delight no more On mountain tops to chase the tusky boar: No game but hopeless love my thoughts pursue: Once more, ye nymphs, and songs, and sounding woods, adieu! Love alters not for us his hard decrees, Not though beneath the Thracian clime we freeze, Or Italy's indulgent heaven forego, And in mid-winter tread Sithonian snow; Or, when the barks of elms are scorched, we keep On Meroë's burning plains the Libyan sheep. In hell, and earth, and seas, and heaven above, Love conquers all; and we must yield to Love." My Muses, here your sacred raptures end: The verse was what I owed my suffering friend. This while I sung, my sorrows I deceived, And bending osiers into baskets weaved. The song, because inspired by you, shall shine; And Gallus will approve, because 'tis mine-- Gallus, for whom my holy flames renew, Each hour, and every moment rise in view; As alders, in the spring, their boles extend, And heave so fiercely, that the bark they rend.