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 Mona high,

55 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,

60 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 uncessant care
65 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?
70 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,

75 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

80 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,

85

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,

90 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.

95 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.

100 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,

105 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;

110 Two massy keys he bore of metals twain

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake :

66

How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such as, for their bellies' sake,

115 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 120 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:

And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; 125 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.
130 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,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
135 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 star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,

140 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 freaked with jet,
145 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,

150 And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,

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 seas 155 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; Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 160 Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,

165

Where the great Vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward 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,

Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

170 And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled 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,

175 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,
180 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
185 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:
190 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.

(1-14) Briefly give a biography of Edward King. (15-49) Name the two fountains of poetic inspiration. Explain "my destined urn." (23-36) These lines refer to the undergraduate days spent by Milton and King at Cambridge. "sultry horn." Leigh Hunt: "which epithet contains the heat of a summer's day." Note the thought sequence leading to the introduction of "shepherd "in (39). (50-63) Compare the allusion to Orpheus to that in P. L., Book 7. 30-38. (64–84) These lines refer to the canons of poetic taste which ruled poets in the year of the composition of "Lycidas." It is questionable whether Edward King would have become famous as a poet. A great poet should not pander to Lydian tastes in order to gain worldly praise; in spite of historical environment, he should work out his poetic themes. (85-102) Show logical sequence in the introduction of pastoral elements. "A higher mood." In the preceding digression Milton is conscious that he has strayed beyond the strict limits of a pastoral. In a good English pastoral it is not legitimate to introduce Greek and Latin mythological characters. (103-131) The University of Cambridge is in mourning. Milton has found an opportunity for a second digression. Note that Milton, a Puritan, uses "mitred" with "locks." The passage in P. L., Book 4. 188-193, throws light on (115). Explain Ruskin's definition of the broken metaphor "Blind mouths." Read his analysis of the whole digression in "Sesame and Lilies," §§ 20 et seq., q. v. "grim wolf" and "two-handed engine": the Catholic Church and the sword of the Reformation. In order to understand how the sheep were foolishly entranced by lean and flashy pastoral (ministerial) music, the pupil should know the history of England from 1636–1641; he should realise that "Lycidas was published in the memorable year of 1638, wherein, on the twenty-seventh of February, the National Covenant met in Grey Friars Churchyard, Edinburgh. Morley, in his "Life of Cromwell," says, "It is in this National Covenant of 1638 that we find ourselves at

.