And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise To scorn delights and live laborious days; 66 Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, 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. He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? And questioned every gust of rugged wings They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed: 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. 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:— Anow of such as, for their bellies' sake, Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And, when they list, their lean and fleshy songs But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Daily devours apace, and nothing said. The tufted crow-toe, and pale gessamine, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. Where the great Vision of the guarded mount Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, Where, other groves and other streams along, Now, Lycidas, the Shepherds weep no more; 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. POEMS WRITTEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR AND THE PROTECTORATE WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED C (NOVEMBER, 1642) APTAIN, or colonel, or knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, Guard them, and him within protect from harms. TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY (1644) LADY! that in the prime of earliest youth Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green, And with those few art eminently seen, That labour up the Hill of Heavenly Truth, 80 |