Shelley reworks a passage from Virgil’s tenth eclogue, centering on the heartbroken poet Gallus. The speaker calls on the nymph Arethusa to bring inspiration, then mourns the unrequited love Gallus feels for Lycoris, who has left him to follow another into distant, harsh terrain. The natural world echoes this sorrow: wild woods, laurels, myrtle groves, and the mountains Maenalus and Lycaeus all weep for him. The mood is lush and melancholic, blending beautiful pastoral imagery with genuine grief. When the forest god Sylvan and Pan himself arrive, instead of offering comfort, they deliver a blunt truth: love is never satisfied, just as meadows keep drinking in fresh streams and bees never tire of thyme. Gallus’s tears cannot fill it. The fragment reads like a lyrical sigh — tender, sensuous, and quietly despairing, as if even the landscape itself understands what it means to long for something forever out of reach.
The Same — Summary
(As revised by Mr. C.D. Locock.)
Melodious Arethusa, o'er my verse Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream:
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Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam Of Syracusan waters, mayest thou flow Unmingled with the bitter Dorian dew! Begin, and whilst the goats are browsing now The soft leaves, in our song let us pursue The melancholy loves of Gallus. List! We sing not to the deaf: the wild woods knew His sufferings, and their echoes answer... Young Naiades, in what far woodlands wild Wandered ye, when unworthy love possessed Our Gallus? Nor where Pindus is up-piled, Nor where Parnassus' sacred mount, nor where Aonian Aganippe spreads its...
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The laurels and the myrtle-copses dim, The pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus, The cold crags of Lycaeus weep for him.
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'What madness is this, Gallus? thy heart's care, Lycoris, mid rude camps and Alpine snow, With willing step pursues another there.'
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And Sylvan, crowned with rustic coronals, Came shaking in his speed the budding wands And heavy lilies which he bore: we knew Pan the Arcadian with.... ...and said, 'Wilt thou not ever cease? Love cares not. The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme, The goats with the green leaves of budding spring Are saturated not--nor Love with tears.'