960 Song. Spir. Back, shepherds, back! Enough your play Till next sun-shine holiday. Here be, without duck or nod, Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise With the mincing Dryades On the lawns and on the leas. This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother. Noble Lord and Lady bright, I have brought ye new delight. Three fair branches of your own. Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970 Their faith, their patience, and their truth, And sent them here through hard assays To triumph in victorious dance (List, mortals, if your ears be true) Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced And from her fair unspotted side But now my task is smoothly done : I can fly, or I can run Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, 1000 ΙΟΙΟ 1020 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, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destined urn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud! For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Tempered to the oaten flute Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; 10 20 309 And old Damotas loved to hear our song. But, oh! 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 Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. "Had ye been there," ... 40 50 for what could that have done? When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, 60 Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) 70 To scorn delights and live laborious days; 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," Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, 80 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." O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, And listens to the Herald of the Sea, That came in Neptune's plea. He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed: Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, "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 90 100 ΠΟ (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 What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; 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, 120 |