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Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more
By sandy Ladon's lilied banks,
On old Lycæus or Cyllene hoar
Trip no more in twilight ranks,
Though Erymanth your loss deplore,
A better soil shall give ye thanks.
From the stony Mænalus

Bring your flocks, and live with us,

Here ye shall have greater grace,

To serve the Lady of this place.

Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were,

Yet Syrinx well might wait on her.

Such a rural queen

All Arcadia hath not seen.

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LYCIDAS.

In this monody the Author bewails a learned Friend, unfortu nately drowned in his passage from Chester, on the Irish seas, 1637, and by occasion foretels 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 barsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude

97..Ladon, another beautiful river in Arcadia.-Lyceus, &c. are celebrated mountains in the same country.

This beautiful little poem, which partakes as much of the character of the allegory as of the pastoral, was written in memorial of Edward King, son of Sir John King, Secretary for Ireland, who perished by shipwreck in a voyage to Dublin, in the 25th year of his age. He was the fellow-collegian and most intimate friend of the poet, who at that time was destined, as well as himself, for holy orders. There are several allusions to the latter circumstance in the monody.

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 watery 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

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With lucky words, favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,

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And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud :
For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,

Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd

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Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,

We drove a-field, and both together heard

What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn,

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Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright,
Towards Heaven's descent had sloped his westering

wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to the oaten flute,

Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old Damætas loved to hear our song.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
"hee, 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,

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15. Sacred Well; the fountain Hippocrene, sacred to the muses, which springs from mount Helicon, on which there was an altar to Jupiter.

19. Muse, a metonomy for poet, see line 21.

k

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 flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.

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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,

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Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: 55 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,

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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 incessant 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 Neæra's hair?

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Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 70 (That last infirmity of noble minds)

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 the abhorred shears, 75
And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,
Phoebus reply'd, and touch'd my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes

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52. The steep; supposed to be Kerigy Drudion, a druid station in Denbighshire.-Mona; the isle of Anglesey.-Deva; the river Dee.

66. Meditate the Muse; a classical phrase; thus Virgil, Ecl. 1. 2. Musam Meditaris.

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;

As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood, 85 Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd 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;

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He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain?
And question'd every gust of rugged winds
That blows from off each beaked promontory;
They knew not of his story,

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And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd;
The air was calm, and on the level brine

Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark

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Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd 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,

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Two massy keys he bore of metals twain

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(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 reck'ning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest;
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to
A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least
That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs!

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[hold

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86. Mincius; a river near Mantua, where Virgil was born 89. The herald; Triton.-Hippotades; Eoles, the son of Hippotas.-Panope; a sea nymph.-Camus; the Cam.

109. The pilot; Saint Peter.

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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 flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye Valleys low, where the mild whispers use

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Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers, 140
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

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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 daffodillies fill their cups with tears,

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To strow the laureat 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 hurl'd, 155
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,

124. Scrannel; harsh.

128. An allusion, it is probable, to the supposed attempts at this period to introduce again the superstitious observances of the Roman church, which Archbishop Laud, it was thought, favoured. 142. Rathe; early.

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