BION.

IDYL I.

IDYL I.

LAMENT FOR ADONIS,

I AND the Loves Adonis dead deplore;
The beautiful Adonis is indeed

Departed, parted from us. Sleep no more
In purple, Cypris, but in watchet weed,
All-wretched! beat thy breast and all aread-
'Adonis is no more.' The loves and I

Lament him. Oh! her grief to see him bleed,
Smitten by white tooth on his whiter thigh,
Out-breathing life's faint sigh upon the mountain high !

Adown his snowy flesh drops the black gore;
Stiffen beneath his brow his sightless eyes;
The rose is off his lip; with him no more
Lives Cytherea's kiss-but with him dies.

He knows not that her lip his cold lip tries, But she finds pleasure still in kissing him. Deep is his thigh-wound; her's yet deeper lies, E'en in her heart. The Oreads' eyes are dim; His hounds whine piteously, in most disordered trim.

Distraught, unkempt, unsandalled, Cypris rushes
Madly along the tangled thicket-steep;

Her sacred blood is drawn by bramble-bushes;
Her skin is torn; with wailings wild and deep
She wanders through the valley's weary sweep,
Calling her boy-spouse, her Assyrian fere.
But from his thigh the purple jet doth leap
Up to his snowy navel; on the clear

Whiteness beneath his paps the deep-red streaks appear.

Alas for Cypris!' sigh the Loves, ' deprived Of her fair spouse, she lost her beauty's pride; Cypris was lovely while Adonis lived,

But with Adonis all her beauty died.'

Mountains, and oaks, and streams, that broadly glide, Or wail or weep for her; in tearful rills

For her gush fountains from the mountain-side; Redden the flowers from grief; city and hills With ditties sadly wild lorn Cytherea fills.