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Assailant on the perched roosts

And nests in order ranged

Of tame villatic fowl, but as an eagle

His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads.
So virtue, given for lost,

Depressed and overthrown, as seemed,

Like that self-begotten bird

In the Arabian woods embost,

That no second knows nor third,

And lay erewhile a holocaust,

From out her ashy womb now teemed,

Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed;

And, though her body die, her fame survives,

A secular bird, ages of lives.

Man. Come, come; no time for lamentation now,

Nor much more cause. Samson hath quit himself
Like Samson, and heroically hath finished
A life heroic, on his enemies

Fully revenged-hath left them years of mourning,
And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor
Through all Philistian bounds; to Israel
Honour hath left and freedom, let but them
Find courage to lay hold on this occasion;
To himself and father's house eternal fame;
And, which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him, as was feared,
But favouring and assisting to the end.
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail

Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame; nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
Let us go find the body where it lies

Soaked in his enemies' blood, and from the stream
With lavers pure, and cleansing herbs, wash off
The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while
(Gaza is not in plight to say us nay),

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Will send for all my kindred, all my friends,
To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend,

Home to his father's house. There will I build him

With silent obsequy and funeral train,

A monument, and plant it round with shade

Of laurel evergreen and branching palm,
With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolled
In copious legend, or sweet lyric song.
Thither shall all the valiant youth resort,
And from his memory inflame their breasts
To matchless valour and adventures high;
The virgins also shall, on feastful days,
Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing
His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice,
From whence captivity and loss of eyes.
Chor. All is best, though we oft doubt
What the unsearchable dispose

Of Highest Wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.
Oft He seems to hide His face,

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But unexpectedly returns,

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And to His faithful champion hath in place

Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns

And all that band them to resist

His uncontrollable intent.

His servants He, with new acquist

Of true experience from this great event,
With peace and consolation hath dismissed,
And calm of mind, all passion spent.

LYCIDAS.

In this Monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637; and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height.

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.
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
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
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,
And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill:
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,

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Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,

Oft till the star that rose at evening bright

Toward Heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute;

Tempered to the oaten flute

Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damotas 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,
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,

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;

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Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.

Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep

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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.
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,

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 incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,

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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 (That last infirmity of noble mind)

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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 abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touched 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,

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 honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned 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.

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He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,

What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged wings

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;
The air was calm, and on the level brine

Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

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Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

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