Stole Orpheus' wits away; (like him^* who saw
In dread the three-necked hound of Hell with chains
Fast round his middle neck, and never lost
His terror till he lost his nature too
And turned to stone; or Olenos, who took
Upon himself the charge and claimed the guilt
When his ill-starred Lethaea trusted to
Her beauty, hearts once linked so close, and now
Two rocks on runnelled Ida's mountainside).
He longed, he begged, in vain to be allowed
To cross the stream of Styx a second time.
The ferryman repulsed him. Even so
For seven days he sat upon the bank,
Unkempt and fasting, anguish, grief and tears
His nourishment, and Hell's cruelty.
Then he withdrew to soaring Rhodope
And Haemus^* battered by the northern gales.

Three times the sun had reached the watery Fish
That close the year,^* while Orpheus held himself
Aloof from love of women, hurt perhaps
By ill-success or bound by plighted troth.
Yet many a woman burned with passion for
The bard, and many grieved at their repulse.
It was his lead that taught the folk of Thrace
The love for tender boys,^* to pluck the buds,
The brief springtime, with manhood still to come.

There was a hill, and on the hill a wide
Level of open ground, all green with grass.
The place lacked any shade. But when the bard,
The heaven-born bard, sat there and touched his strings,
Shade came in plenty. Every tree was there:^*
Dodona's holy durmast,^* poplars once
The Sun's sad daughters,^* oaks with lofty leaves,
Soft limes, the virgin laurel^* and the beech;
The ash, choice wood for spearshafts, brittle hazels,
The knotless fir, the ilex curving down
With weight of acorns, many-coloured maples,
The social^* plane, the river-loving willow,
The water-lotus, box for ever green,
Thin tamarisks and myrtles double-hued,

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