316 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



To and fro with the wind, I stay to listen, 



And fancy to myself that a sad voice. 



Praying, comes moaning through the leaves, as 'twere 



For some misdeed." 



Marcelia. 



This music is celebrated by Moschus in a beautiful 

 little piece translated by L. Hunt : 



" But when the deeps are moved, and the waves come 

 Shuddering along, and tumbling into foam, 

 I turn to earth, which trusty seems, and staid. 

 And love to get into a greenwood shade ; 

 In which the pines, although the winds be strong. 

 Can turn the bluster to a sylvan song 



Mr. Hunt praises the voice of the Pine in an original 



poem also : 



And then there fled by me a rush of air 



That stirred up all the other foliage there, 



Filling the soHtude with panting tongues ; 



At which the pines woke up into their songs. 



Shaking their choral locks ; and on the place 



There fell a shade as on an awe-struck face ; 



And overhead, like a portentous rim 



Pulled over the wide world, to make all dim, 



A grave gigantic cloud came hugely uplifting him." 



Nymphs t." 



Ovid represents the Cyclops, v»'lio lived on the coast of 

 Sicily as carrying a lofty Pine-tree by way of walking- 

 stick; and tells us that Ceres bore a flaming pine, 

 plucked from Mount Etna, in each hand, to assist her 



* Hunt's Foliage — Evergreens, p. 76. 

 •t Ibid. p. 24. 



