Apollo's herds;-the fourth day of the moon
On which him bore the venerable May,
From her immortal limbs he leaped full

soon,

Nor long could in his sacred cradle keep,
But out to seek Apollo's herds would creep.

IV.

Out of the lofty cavern wandering,

He found a tortoise, and cried out—“A
treasure!"

(For Mercury first made the tortoise sing :)
The beast before the portal at his leisure
The flowery herbage was depasturing,
Moving his feet in a deliberate measure
Over the turf. Jove's profitable son
Eyeing him laughed, and laughing thus
begun :-

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V.

"A useful god-send are you to me now,

King of the dance, companion of the feast, Lovely in all your nature! Welcome, you Excellent plaything! Where, sweet mountain beast,

Got you that speckled shell? Thus much I know,

You must come home with me and be my
guest;

You will give joy to me, and I will do
All that is in my power to honour you.

VI.

"Better to be at home than out of door ;

So come with me, and though it has been said That you alive defend from magic power,

I know you will sing sweetly when you're dead."

Thus having spoken, the quaint infant bore,
Lifting it from the grass on which it fed,
And grasping it in his delighted hold,
His treasured prize into the cavern old.

VII.

Then scooping with a chisel of grey steel,
He bored the life and soul out of the beast-
Not swifter a swift thought of woe or weal
Darts through the tumult of a human breast
Which thronging cares annoy-not swifter
wheel

The flashes of its torture and unrest
Out of the dizzy eyes-than Maia's son
All that he did devise hath featly done.

VIII.

And through the tortoise's hard stony skin At proper distances small holes he made, And fastened the cut stems of reeds within, And with a piece of leather overlaid

The open space and fixed the cubits in, Fitting the bridge to both, and stretched o'er all Symphonious cords of sheep-gut rhythmical.

IX.

When he had wrought the lovely instrument, He tried the chords, and made division meet Preluding with the plectrum; and there went Up from beneath his hand a tumult sweet Of mighty sounds; and from his lips he sent A strain of unpremeditated wit,

Joyous and wild and wanton-such you may Hear among revellers on a holiday.

X.

He sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal Dallied in love not quite legitimate;

And his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal, And naming his own name, did celebrate; His mother's cave and servant-maids he planned all

In plastic verse, her household stuff and state, Perennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan,But, singing, he conceived another plan.

XI.

Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat, He in his sacred crib deposited

The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet Rushed with great leaps up to the mountain's head,

Revolving in his mind some subtle feat Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might Devise in the lone season of dun night.

XII.

Lo! the great Sun under the ocean's bed has Driven steeds and chariot-the child mean

while strode

O'er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows,
Where the immortal oxen of the God
Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows,
And safely stalled in a remote abode-
The archer Argicide, elate and proud,
Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud.

XIII.

He drove them wandering o'er the sandy way; But, being ever mindful of his craft, Backward and forward drove he them astray, So that the tracks which seemed before were

aft;

His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray,

And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft

Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs,
And bound them in a lump with withy twigs.

XIV.

And on his feet he tied these sandals light, The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight, Like a man hastening on some distant way, He from Pieria's mountain bent his flight; But an old man perceived the infant pass Down green Onchestus heaped like beds with

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grass.

XV.

The old man stood dressing his sunny vine: Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder!

You grub those stumps? before they will bear

wine

Methinks even you must grow a little older: Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine,

As you would 'scape what might appal a bolder

Seeing, see not—and hearing, hear not-andIf you have understanding-understand."

XVI.

So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast;
O'er shadowy mountain and resounding dell,
And flower-paven plains, great Hermes past;
Till the black night divine, which favouring
fell

Around his steps, grew grey, and morning fast
Wakened the world to work, and from her

cell

Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime

Into her watch-tower just began to climb.

XVII.

Now to Alpheus he had driven all

The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun; They came unwearied to the lofty stall And to the water troughs which ever run Through the fresh fields-and when with rushgrass tall,

Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one Had pastured been, the great God made them

move

Towards the stall in a collected drove.

XVIII.

A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped,
And having soon conceived the mystery
Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches
stripped

The bark, and rubbed them in his palms,on high

Suddenly forth the burning vapour leapt,
And the divine child saw delightedly—
Mercury first found out for human weal
Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel.

XIX.

And fine dry logs and roots innumerous
He gathered in a delve upon the ground-
And kindled them-and instantaneous

The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around:

And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus Wrapped the great pile with glare and roaring sound,

Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud,

Close to the fire-such might was in the God.