18 FOOT-NOTES FOR IDYLS

’Mongst all immortals tardiest is their tread! Dear and desired, they tread with dainty feet, By whose dear advent all are comforted ’Mongst mortal men! Thus, thus, thy verses greet The Coming Hours—those Hours that from the heat And mirth and friendly girls of Sicily, Unheeding, haled thee to hell’s minstrels’-seat, To edify austere Persephonê. The living may forget; only the dead Are hopeless! sang blithe Corydon, where beat Bright waves upon bright sands, and overhead Pines murmured benisons. Now is it sweet To rhyme of this in thy less glad retreat, Theocritus, who badest that song be Immortal? and dost thou find that song meet To edify austere Persephonê? Now all old hours and all old years are sped What profits it with thee if men repeat Or all or anything thy live lips said? Thou hast forgot Bombyca’s ivory feet, The shrill cicalæ’s chirp, the lambkins’ bleat, And Lacon’s honied song on Helykê. What profits thee the honied sound of it To edify austere Persephonê? Lord of glad songs, for us the winding-sheet. For thee the funeral pyre—built near the sea,— Bids singing cease, and songless lips compete To edify austere Persephonê.