But, O the heavy change now thou art gone, Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves, The willows, and the hazel copses green, Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 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 shepherds' ear. Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream ; 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, To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Fame is the spur that the clear sp'rit doth raise To scorn delights and live laborious days; Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise. K Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, 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, 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: Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. It was that fatal and perfidious bark, Built in the 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; Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold But that two-handed engine at the door That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, eyes, Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies. For, so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise; Ah me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 12 Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old. Looks towards 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 watry 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, Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more: At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue : Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount, Where on the Ægean shore a city stands, City or suburban, studious walks and shades. His whispering stream: within the walls then view There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power By voice or hand; and various-measured verse, And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, Of moral prudence with delight received 8. THE FIRST SIGHT OF EVE. On she came, |