Nor yet where Deva1 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 Hebrus1 to the Lesbian shore.

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,
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)

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 abhorréd 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.'

1 Deva, the Dee, 'a river which probably derived its magical character from Celtic traditions.'

2 The Muse, Calliope.

3 Orpheus, torn to pieces by the Bacchanalians.

Hebrus, a river in Thrace.

5 Amaryllis and Neæra, 'names used here for the love-idols of poets.'

6 The blind Fury, Atropos, who was said to cut the thread of life.

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, Smooth sliding Mincius,1 crowned with vocal reeds ! That strain I heard was of a higher mood:

But now my oat2 proceeds,

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 questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beakéd promontory :

They knew not of his story;

And sage Hippotadés3 their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed;
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panopé1 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.

5

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;

1 Arethuse and Mincius, 'Sicilian and Italian waters here alluded to as synonymous with the pastoral poetry of Theocritus and Virgil.'

2 Oat, pipe or musical instrument, used here for song.

p. 13.

See 'oaten stop,'

3 Hippotades, Eolus, the son of Hippotas, god of the winds.

+ Panope 'represents the boundlessness of the ocean-horizon when seen from a height, as compared with the limited horizon of the land in hilly countries, such as Greece or Asia Minor.'

5 Camus, the Cam, put for the University of Cambridge. King was a fellow of Christ's College.

6 Sanguine flower, the hyacinth of the ancients.

7 The pilot, St. Peter, 'figuratively introduced as the head of the Church on earth, to foretell "the ruin of our corrupted clergy then in their heighth," under Laud.'

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 learned aught else the least
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
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.'

Return, Alpheus,2 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-star3 sparely looks;
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.

The grim wolf, Popery.

2 Alpheus, a stream in southern Greece, supposed to flow under the sea to join the Arethuse. See Shelley's' Arethusa,' p. 275.

3 Swart-star, the dog star.

Bring the rathe1 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 hung the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears :
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat herse 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,
Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows3 denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus1 old,

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, For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

1 Rathe, early, positive form of rather.

2 Amaranthus, a flower that never fades; see p. 345, 'Immortal amarant.' 3 Moist vows, 'tearful prayers, or prayers for one at sea.'

Bellerus, a giant, a personification of Bellerium, the ancient title of the Land's End.

5 The great Vision of the guarded Mount. The archangel Michael is said to have appeared on the top of the 'guarded Mount,' Mount St. Michael, not far from the Land's End in Cornwall, and to have directed a church to be built there.

7 Bayona, 'north of the Minho, or perhaps a fortified rock at the entrance of Vigo Bay.'

8 Angel, St. Michael.

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 ore1
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 the perilous flood.

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay :2 And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 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.

1 New spangled ore, 'rays of golden light.'
2 Doric lay, Sicilian, pastoral.

F. Milton.