The herds were trotting from their winter quarters.

Their young attendant, after many months,

Advanced across the plain a river brightens.

The meadows, glad to be awakened, hailed

With sappy green, and fields sang out to him.

But smiling to himself, he walked the paths

Of spring and was possessed with new divinings.

He used his staff to leap across the ford

And lingered on the farther bank where gold,

Which lazy waves had washed from sand and stones,

Delighted him, and fragile shells of many

Colours and contours presaged happiness.

The bleating of his lambs no longer held him.

He roved into the woods to cool ravines

Where plunging streams are steep between the boulders

On which the mosses drip, and bared and black

The roots of beeches branch. Beneath the silence

And gentle motion of the vaulted tree-tops,

He closed his eyes and slept. The sun was high

And scaly silver darted through the waters.

When he awoke he climbed the peak and reached

The solemn rite of onward flowing light.

He prayed and crowned himself with sacred leaves,

And up to warm and slowly shifting shadows

Of clouds already dark, he launched his song.