University of Virginia Library

A PASTORAL.

Virgil.
How sweet to sit at noontide's hour,
Beneath the lilac tree,
And watch the slowly budding flower
And sing, O Spring, of thee.
Trot out, O Tityrus, my flute,
Hand o'er my tuneful lyre,
Unhand the throttle of my flute,
Lead out the shepherd choir.
And let the ewes and lambkins stand
In dumb surprise on every hand,
While all the hills and valleys ring,
With our apostrophe to Spring.

Tityrus.
Wilt thou, O Virgil, tip us a stave
In the plaintive Ionic, or in the lively
Manner of the swift-footed iambic?

Virgil.
On a barren rock with thee, O Tityrus,
Born into the world, else wouldst thou know
That neither does it please me to sing praises
Nor invoke in the gentle Alcaic for the
Choriambic heptameter catalectic.

Tityrus.
Sing then, I pray, in the dialectic trimeter,
Or the joyous iambic dimeter, the staid
Pherecractic or the suicidal Sapphic.

Virgil.
Youth be shut as to your prattling mouth,
My lyric is not attuned to such as
Dactylic, tetrameter a posteriore,
Adonic, iambic, dimeter hypermeter,
Acephalous Choriambic tetrameter,
Glyconic, Ionic a minore minor,
Alcaic, Dactylico iambic or
Archilochian heptameter.

Tityrus.
In what manner of flowing verslets
Will thou, the poet, breathe the song?

Virgil.
In the sardonic, sulphuric gasmeter,
In the smooth carbolic celtic diameter,
The chronic, laconic cataleptic,
The muriatic acidic or the mellifluous
Diabolic paregoric—but look!
The shadows on the hills grow larger and
The sun fades in the horizon, O Pueri
Sat prata rivos biberunt, vale.