His garlands lay beyond, fall'n from his head;
His heavy wine-jar from worn handle hung:
They seize him (for he oft had promised fair
To sing them songs) and bind, with his own wreaths;
Now comes the fairest of the Naiads near,
Ægle, encouraging the coward boys,
And, as he opes his eyes, she with the juice
Of mulberries, stains his brows and temples red.
He, laughing at the trick, saith, "Loose me, lads,
Why tie these bonds? Enough that I am seen.
"Now hear the songs ye wish for—songs for you—
"For her some other payment"—then began
And as he sang you well could think you saw
Fauns and wild creatures frisking in the dance;
Then the stiff oaks waving their topmost boughs,
The cliff Parnassian, less in Phœbus joyed,
Less did the Thracian hills Orpheus admire,
For now he sang how through the vasty void
Were gathered once the seeds of all those things
In earth and air and sea and liquid fire
That grew together—till the young orbed world
Itself was shaped—then how the solid earth
Separate became, and all the waters wide
Were prison'd by degrees in the sea's cup.
Then sang he how the lands were all amazed
To see the new-born Sun rise and shine forth
And from the clouds on high the rain showers fall.
When the thick forests first began to rise
And a few creatures ranged the unknown hills,
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