Explore "From Vergil's Tenth Eclogue" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Melodious Arethusa, o'er my verse / Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream: / Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou / Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam / Of Syracusan waters, mayst thou flow / Unmingled with the bitter Doric dew! / Begin, and, whilst the goats are browsing now / The soft leaves, in our way let us pursue / The melancholy loves of Gallus. List! / We sing not to the dead: the wild woods knew / His sufferings, and their echoes... / Young Naiads,...in what far woodlands wild / Wandered ye when unworthy love possessed / Your Gallus? Not where Pindus is up-piled, / Nor where Parnassus' sacred mount, nor where / Aonian Aganippe expands... / The laurels and the myrtle-copses dim. / The pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus, / The cold crags of Lycaeus, weep for him; / And Sylvan, crowned with rustic coronals, / Came shaking in his speed the budding wands / And heavy lilies which he bore: we knew / Pan the Arcadian.
‘What madness is this, Gallus? Thy heart's care / With willing steps pursues another there. '