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In this
monody the author bewails a learned friend,
unfortunately drowned in
his passage from Chester on
the Irish Seas, 1637; and by occasion foretells
the
ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height.
Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye
myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck
your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers
rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me
to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead
ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his
peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must
not float upon his wat'ry bier
Unwept, and welter to
the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious
tear.
Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That
from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and
somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial
vain, and coy excuse,
So may some gentle Muse
With
lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes
turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For
we were nursed upon the selfsame hill,
Fed the same
flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both,
ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids
of the morn,
We drove a-field, and both together
heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose, at ev'ning, bright
Toward heav'n's descent had sloped his west'ring wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered
to th' oaten flute;
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns
with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be
absent long;
And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.
But O! the heavy change now thou art gone,
Now thou
art gone and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee
the woods, and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the
gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no
more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft
lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or
taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost
to flow'rs, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first
the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to
shepherd's ear.
Where were ye, Nymphs, when the
remorseless deep
Closed o'er the head of your loved
Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on
the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva
spreads her wizard stream.
Ay me, I fondly dream!
Had ye been there, for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The
Muse herself for her enchanting son,
Whom universal
nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the
hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was
sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the
homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly
meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done
as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the
spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last
infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live
laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to
find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And
slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
"Fame
is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the
glist'ring foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad
rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those
pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame
in heav'n expect thy meed."
O fountain Arethuse, and
thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned
with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher
mood;
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the
herald of the sea
That came in Neptune's plea.
He
asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard
mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned
every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each
beaked promontory:
They knew not of his story,
And
sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast
was from his dungeon strayed;
The air was calm, and
on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters
played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in th' eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Next
Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle
hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures
dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower
inscribed with woe.
"Ah! Who hath reft (quoth he) my
dearest pledge?"
Last came, and last did go,
The
Pilot of the Galilean lake.
Two massy keys he bore of
metals twain,
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain)
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake
"How
well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow
of such as for their bellies' sake
Creep, and
intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they
little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the
shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden
guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how
to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the
least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate
on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry
sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoll'n with
wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and
foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf
with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready
to smite once, and smite no more."
Return, Alpheus,
the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams;
return, Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid
them hither cast
Their bells and flow'rets of a
thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild
whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing
brooks
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely
looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honeyed show'rs,
And
purple all the ground with vernal flow'rs.
Bring the
rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted
crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the
pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The
musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With
cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every
flower that sad embroidery wears.
Bid amaranthus all
his beauty shed,
And daffadillies fill their cups
with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid
lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,
Let our
frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Ay me!
whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far
away, where'er thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond
the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the
whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous
world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the
great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward
Namancos and Bayona's hold.
Look homeward, Angel,
now, and melt with ruth;
And, O ye dolphins, waft the
hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep
no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk
though he be beneath the wat'ry floor.
So sinks the
day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his
drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with
new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the
morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With
nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the
unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek
of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints
above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That
sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the
tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the
shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the
genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and
shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous
flood.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to th' oaks and
rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals
grey;
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now
the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was
dropped into the western bay.
At last he rose, and
twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods,
and pastures new.
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