| 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. | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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; | 20 |
| 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 appear'd | 25 |
| Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, | |
| We drove afield, and both together heard | |
| What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, | |
| Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, | |
| Oft till the star that rose at evening bright | 30 |
| Toward 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; | 35 |
| And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. | |
| |
| But oh 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, | 40 |
| 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, | 45 |
| 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. | |
| |
| Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep | 50 |
| 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: | 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, | 60 |
| 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 | 65 |
| 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? | |
| Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise | 70 |
| (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 the abhorrèd shears | 75 |
| And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise," | |
| Phoebus replied, 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: | 80 |
| 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 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; | 90 |
| 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 wings | |
| That blows from off each beakèd promontory: | |
| They knew not of his story; | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| Built in the 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 | 105 |
| 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 | 110 |
| (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! | 115 |
| 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 learn'd aught else the least | 120 |
| 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, | 125 |
| But swoln 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 | 130 |
| 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. | 135 |
| 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 enamell'd eyes | |
| That on the green turf suck the honey'd 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, | 145 |
| The musk-rose, and the well-attirèd woodbine, | |
| With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, | |
| And every flower that sad embroidery wears: | |
| Bid amarantus all his beauty shed, | |
| And daffadillies fill their cups with tears | 150 |
| To strew 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, | |
| Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world; | |
| Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, | |
| Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, | 160 |
| Where the great Vision of the guarded mount | |
| 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, woeful shepherds, weep no more, | 165 |
| 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-spangl'd ore | 170 |
| 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, | 175 |
| 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, | 180 |
| 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. | 185 |
| |
| Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, | |
| While the still morn went out with sandals gray; | |
| He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, | |
| With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: | |
| And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, | 190 |
| And now was dropt into the western bay. | |
| At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: | |
| To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. | |
| |
