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 favor my destined urn,

And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nurst upon the selfsame 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 a-field, and both together heard

What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,

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 Damætas loved to hear our

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; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's

(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 ab

horrèd 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 rumor 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 honored 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

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 Panopé 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;

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 shearer's 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, the dread voice is past,

That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,

On whose fresh lap the swart star 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.

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,

The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freakt 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 amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with

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 newspangled ore

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 forever 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 that 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;

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 pas

tures new.

MILTON.

Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,

Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with its homely cottage-smell,

And stocks in fragrant blow; Roses that down the alleys shine afar, And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,

And the full moon, and the white evening-star.

He hearkens not! light comer, he is gone!

What matters it? next year he will return,

And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days,

With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern,

And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways,

And scent of hay new-mown. But Thyrsis never more we swains

shall see;

See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,

And blow a strain the world at last

Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be,

Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its

hour

In the old haunt, and find our treetopped hill!

Who, if not I, for questing hére hath power?

I know the wood which hides the daffodil,

I know the Fyfield tree, I know what white, what purple fritillaries

The grassy harvest of the riverfields,

Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields;

And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries;