Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence,2 and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.
There let Hymen3 oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp and feast and revelry,
With mask and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learnèd sock 1⁄4 be on,
Or sweetest Shakespear, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
With stories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat.
She was pinched and pulled, she said;
And he, by friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, 115
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
1 landscape 2 Phanician sailors steered by the constellation of the Little Bear, Cynosura. 3 carefree
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister1 might beseem,
Or that starred Ethiop queen2 that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The sea nymphs, and their powers offended.
Yet thou art higher far descended:
Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore
To solitary Saturn bore;
His daughter she (in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain).
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,3
Flowing with majestic train,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among,
I woo to hear thy even-song;
And missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way, 70
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removèd place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
And sable stole of cypress lawn 4
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, 45
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing;
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke
Gently o'er the accustomed oak:
Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
1 Hemera, presumably very beautiful though black 2 Cassiopea, who offended the Nereids; and after her death was placed among the stars 3 dye 4crape yonder 6 the nightingale The chariot of the moon, Cynthia, was drawn by dragons.
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes; or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or underground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes', or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined1 stage.
But, O sad Virgin! that thy power
Might raise Museus from his bower;
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's check,
And made Hell grant what love did seck;
Or call up him that left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass
2 powerful
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Where the rude axe with heavèd stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep;
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid;
And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,*
And love the high embowèd roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
1 soberly attired 2 slow drops 3 god of forests 4 confines, limits 5 with pictures in stained glass
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,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,2
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,3
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
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 10
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 5 15 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 6
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
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 Damotas loved to hear our song. 36
But O the heavy change, now thou art gone, 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 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, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona1 high,
Nor yet where Deva2 spreads her wizard
stream.
Ay me, I fondly dream!
Had ye been there
What could the Muse3 herself that Orpheus
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When by the rout1 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 uncessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? 66
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
1 the isle of Anglesey 2 the river Dee 3 Calliope 4 mob
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
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle
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 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,
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
"Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest
pledge?"
Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake; 4
1 Atropos, the Fate who severs the thread of life 2 shepherd's pipe 3 taken away St. Peter
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain 110
(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,
Enough of such as for their bellies' sake,
Creep and intrude and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make 116
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
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;1
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel2 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
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, 150
To strew the laureate 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
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled; Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 156
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;1 Or whether thou, to our moist 2 vows denied, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, 160 Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold. Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth; 3
And O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, 175
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, 180
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 that perilous flood.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks
While the still morn went out with sandals
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. 191 At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. 4 the
1 world of monsters object of your sorrow
2 tear-wet 3 pity inexpressible
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