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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 whitethorn blows;-

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep,

Where your old bards,2 the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona3 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,
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,

Gadding-connected with the verb to go-going about, wandering, straying.

2 Where your old bards, &c.--The Druid-sepulchres in the mountains of Denbighshire are referred to here.

3 Mona-the Isle of Anglesey.

4 Deva-the Dee. See note 3, p. 147.

5 Had ye been there, &c.-i. e. as Warton interprets-"I will suppose you had been there--but why should I suppose it-for what would that have availed?"

6 Meditate in the Latin sense-practise.

See Virgil, "Ecl." i, 2.

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 Arethusé, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius,2 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;

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 Hippotades3 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,

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

Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past,

That shrunk5 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 star7 sparely looks,

1 Fury-i. e. destiny.

2 Mincius-a river near Mantua, where Virgil was born.

3

4

Hippotades-olus, the son of Hippotas, the fabulous king of the winds.
Panope-a sea-nymph.

5 That shrunk, &c.-i. e. "that silenced my pastoral poetry," as Mr. Warton interprets.

6 Use-i. e. frequent, inhabit.

7 Swart star" The dog-star is called the swart star, by turning the effect into the cause. Swart is swarthy, brown, &c." Warton.

Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
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 hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amarantus all his beauty shed,

And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strow 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 hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,

Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide,
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world; 2
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,3
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos5 and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth :
And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woful 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
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky;

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,

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2 Monstrous world-the world of monsters, the sea.

3 Bellerus old-a fabulous giant of that name, renowned in Cornish mythology, or a rugged cliff, so named; some say the Land's End is intended.

4 Where the great vision of the guarded mount-i.e. the apparition of St. Michael, who gives name to St. Michael's Mount, which looks towards Spain, as intimated in the next line.

5 Namancos-this place appears, Mr. Todd informs us, in old maps, as a castle on the coast of Galicia in Spain.

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 recompence, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.

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,
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.

L'ALLEGRO.1

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy:

L'Allegro-"The cheerful man."

The design of this, and the following poem is to represent in a connected series of pictures, the most obvious images respectively associated with the cheerful and the melancholy temperament. The tone, spirit, and scenery all exquisitely combine in accomplishing the poet's purpose. "They are indeed," as Mr. Macaulay remarks, "not so much poems, as collections of hints, from each of which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every epithet is a text for a canto."

The first ten lines in contrast with the ten that follow, afford one of the finest specimens that can be found of the expressive music of verse. In reading them aloud, the voice is at first encumbered and detained amongst artful pauses, long syllables, and clusters of harsh consonants until, at the tenth line, it is almost lost in the sombre gloom; in the next, it bursts as it were at once into life and light, and the very tone and beat of the verse are in the highest degree animating and picturesque,

X

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,1
And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sager2 sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-maying,

There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh blown-roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,

So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,

Nods, and Becks, and wreathed3 Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come and trip it as you go

On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right-hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

1

Euphrosyne-It may be remarked that the cheerfulness illustrated in this poem is not obstreperous and vulgar merriment, but such as it befits one of the Graces to inspire.

2 As some sager, &c.—The allegory should be observed; on the one supposition, Mirth is the offspring of sensuality-on the other, the wiser conjecture, of exercise, and the breezes of the early morning, betokened by Zephyr and Aurora.

3 Wreathed-in allusion to the curling or curving of the features in the act of smiling, giving what is called an arch look.

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