(Βοικολικός a herdsman, Βοικολικός pastoral), in ancient poetry, a kind of poem relating to shepherds and rural affairs. According to the generally received opinion, it was of Sicilian origin. "Bucolics," says Vossius, "have some conformity with comedy. Like it, they are pictures and imitations of ordinary life; with this difference, however, that comedy represents the manners of the inhabitants of cities, and bucolics the occupations of country people." "Sometimes," he continues, "this last kind of poem is in the form of a monologue, and sometimes in that of a dialogue. Sometimes there is action in it, sometimes only narration, and sometimes it is composed both of action and narration."

The hexameter verse is the most proper for bucolics in the Greek and Latin tongues. Moschus, Bion, Theocritus, and Virgil, are the most renowned of the ancient bucolic poets.