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86
FROM LOUIS BOUILHET.
An Eclogue.
Traveller.The moonless dark has covered all the plain;
O silent shepherd, whither art thou fain?
Shepherd.
My path, O traveller, is a path of care;
While others sleep I alway onward fare.
Traveller.
And that dark flock that lengthens from thy feet,
Hath it no bell nor any pastoral bleat?
Shepherd.
O traveller, see thou tell it unto none,
Of all my flock no voice hath any one.
87
Ah me, that flock! it frights me in the gloom;
It seems of spectres gathering from the tomb.
Shepherd.
O traveller, see thou tell it unto none,
It is the flock of my desires foredone.
Traveller.
Ah God! the throng comes thickening through the night,
And on, and on, beyond my failing sight.
Shepherd.
Count thou no more, for, as the minutes flee,
For each one monster more is following me.
Traveller.
What God enchains thee to these spectral sheep?
Come shepherd, come unto our flowery vale;
There o'er my thatch the honeysuckles creep,
And at my window sings the nightingale.
88
Not there, O traveller, in thy happy land,
Not there in peace this pallid brow may dwell;
My flock and I must drink on Lethe's strand,
And pasture in the plains of asphodel.
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