supposed to have been written, like the preceding ones, at Horton, in Buckinghamshire. Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Begin, then, sisters of the sacred well, So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favor my destin'd urn, And bid fair peace to be my sable shroud: For we were nurst upon the self-same hill, Tow'rds heav'n's descent had slop'd his west'ring wheel. Temper'd to the oaten flute; Rough Satyrs danc'd; and Fauns with cloven heel But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone, The willows, and the hazel copses green, Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. Or taint worm to the weanling herds that graze, Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear, Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas? 18 For neither were ye playing on the steep, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream :19 Had ye been there-for what could that have done? When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise Nor in the glist'ning foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies, But lives, and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the herald of the sea That came in Neptune's plea ; He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds, And question'd every gust of rugged wings They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotades their answer brings, Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe.20 "Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge ?" Last came and last did go.21 The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain (The golden opes, and iron shuts amain), He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: "How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,2 "Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake "Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold? "Of other cares they little reckoning make, "And shove away the worthy bidden guest; "Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold "A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least "That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! "What recks it then? What need they? They are sped; "And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs "Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; "Daily devours apace, and nothing said: Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet, The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.- Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, Where the great Vision of the guarded Mount26 Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth: 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 walk'd the waves: Where, other groves and other streams along, With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, That sing, and, singing, in their glory move, Now Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: 16"Without the meed of some melodious tear."-Catullus uses the word in a like sense, when alluding to the elegies of Simonides in his touching expostulation with his friend, Cornificius, whom he requests to come and see him during a time of depression: Paulum quid lubet allocutionis Prythee a little talk for ease, for ease, 17 "Begin, and somewhat loudly," &c. The first of these lines has a poor prosaic effect, like one of the inane mixtures of familiarity and assumed importance in the "Pindaric" writers of the age. And "hence with denial vain" is a very unnecessary piece of harshness towards the poor Muses, who surely were not disposed to ill-treat the young poet. 18" Clos'd o'er the head," &c.—The very best image of drowning he could have chosen, especially during calm weather, both as regards sufferer and spectator. The combined sensations of darkness, of liquid enclosure, and of the final interposition of a heap of waters between life and the light of day, are those which most absorb the faculties of a drowning person. Haud insubmersus loquor. 19" Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream."-The river Dee, in Spenser's and Drayton's poetry, and old British history, is celebrated for its ominous character and its magicians. |