The air was calm, and on the level brine
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.

100

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!

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 learnt 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,
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.
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 enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honeyed 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 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,

150

To strew the laureate 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 hurled ;
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,
Sleep'st 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.

160

Weep no more, woeful 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 170 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,
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.

180

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey:
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, 190
And now was dropt into the western bay.

At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue :
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

SONNETS.

I.

[TO THE NIGHTINGALE.]

O NIGHTINGALE that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love. O, if Jove's will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate

Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why.

Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

II.

[ON HIS HAVING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF
TWENTY-THREE.]

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth That I to manhood am arrived so near; And inward ripeness doth much less appear, That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.

Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven, All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.

III.

DONNA leggiadra, il cui bel nome onora

L' erbosa val di Reno e il nobil varco, Bene è colui d' ogni valore scarco Qual tuo spirto gentil non innamora, Che dolcemente mostrasi di fuora,

De' sui atti soavi giammai parco,

E i don', che son d' amor saette ed arco,
Laonde l'alta tua virtù s' infiora.

Quando tu vaga parli, o lieta canti,

Che mover possa duro alpestre legno, Guardi ciascun a gli occhi ed a gli orecchi L'entrata chi di te si truova indegno;

Grazia sola di sù gli vaglia, innanti

Che 'l disio amoroso al cuor s' invecchi.

IV.

QUAL in colle aspro, a l' imbrunir di sera,
L'avezza giovinetta pastorella

Va bagnando l'erbetta strana e bella
Che mal si spande a disusata spera

Fuor di sua natia alma primavera,

Così Amor meco insù la lingua snella
Desta il fior novo di strania favella,
Mentre io di te, vezzosamente altera,
Canto, dal mio buon popol non inteso,

E 'l bel Tamigi cangio col bel Arno.
Amor lo volse, ed io a l' altrui peso