Virgins and youths bend em❜lous, piling high
The clust'ring treasures in their osier vats.

Then groans the wine-press, then with measur'd step
The swain treads pond'rous on the bruised mash;
The juice express'd around his ankles bare

Flows redolent, and through deep channels pour'd,

Dilates the goat-skin with its ruddy stream.
Now ring the shouts of revel, vintage songs
Of rustic merriment, and uproar loud

Of brawling chorus, such as thy wild rout,
✪ Bromius, rais'd upon Citharon's' heights
Amidst the ivy-wreathed Bacchanals,
When thy loud-rattling cymbals gave the sign
For frantic riot and rude dissonance.

Seek we the peasant's cot; its humble roof
Peeps from the covert of yon verdant grove
Of fig and almond, which intwining shades
A limpid fountain; the Arcadian hinds
Who tenanted these vales ere Happiness

Had fled from man, ne'er rear'd a simpler hut.
The door, scarce moving on its wooden hinge,

430

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Touches th' impending eaves; the mud-brick wall, 450

Cleft into hole and cranny, lattic'd o’er,

Admits a dubious light; the roof is ridg'd

With lay'rs of stone, worn smooth by wint'ry streams,
And gather'd from the torrent's neighb'ring bed.

Within, large wicker jars of corn, and skins
Of wine in order rang'd are seen, the stores

455

Of winter, and against the whiten'd wall,
Confus'dly mix'd, the homely treasures hang,
Cauldron and burnish'd pan, and crook and lamp,
And pictur'd saint; whilst from the beams transverse 460
Swing gun, and shepherd's cloak, and rustic pipe,
And goat-skin, dripping with the new-made cheese.
Mournful and crowding round the wooden dish,
The boors recline upon the clayey floor,

And snatch their scanty meal; unwholesome bread 465
And olives, curdled milk, and roasted maize,

Hard fare-yet such as form'd their ancestors

To daring feats, and steel'd their breasts to meet

The shock of battle on their country's shores.

No more of peaceful scenes, of vales which sleep 470

In mountain shadow, of transparent streams

Gurgling o'er golden beds of sand, and lawns

Vocal with shepherd's song, we now must change
These notes to sterner lays, of rocks and glens,
Veil'd in a night of woods, and savage man
Imbibing thence the colour of his soul.

Long passes, winding underneath the gloom
Of crags, and wood-rob'd mountains, cleft abrupt
In precipice, and torrents dashing white
Their wint'ry stream across the dang'rous path,
Mark the bleak bulwarks of Laconia's land.
Through these defiles the march of hostile men
Ne'er pass'd unseen; upon a rocky height
Freedom kept guard, and when her trumpet blew
The loud alarum, all her warlike sons

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Clasp'd on their burnish'd helmets, pois'd their spears, And mark'd the lightning of her eye, to guide

The storm of battle on th' invading host.

Stern were her sons-Upon Eurotas' bank,

Where black Taÿgetus o'er cliff and peak

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Waves his dark pines, and spreads his glist'ning snows,
On five low hills their city rose; no walls,
No ramparts clos'd it round; its battlements

• Nemorum noctem. GRAY.

P