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,

145

150

To strew the laureate herse 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.
Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,

Doister, iii. 5, 'All the stock thou comest of, later or rather;' Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar (February), The rather lambs be starved with cold.'

That forsaken dies.] That dies left in the shade, neglected, unvisited by the sun. Milton had first written, That unwedded dies; the thought being from Shaksp. Winter's Tale, iv. 3, 'Pale primroses that die unmarried, ere they can behold bright Phoebus in his strength.' Why the primrose is said to die unmarried is, according to Warton, 'because it grows in the shade, uncherished or unseen by the sun, which was supposed to be in love with some sorts of flowers.' The sun-flower was sometimes called the sun's spouse, because of going to sleep and waking

with the sun.

155

Sleepest 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, woful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

Sunk though he be beneath the watery 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,

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 the oaks and rills,
While the still Morn went out with sandals gray;
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;
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

180

185

190

188. Quills.] Reeds or pipes.
189. His Doric lay.] Theo-
critus, from whose Idylls Milton
borrowed the name Lycidas,
wrote in the Doric dialect.

190. The sun had stretched
out, &c.] The setting sun had
stretched to the utmost the sha-
dows of the hills.

192. Twitched.] Plucked round
him.

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