Lycidas
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Yet once more, O ye
laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with
ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your
berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd
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
Himself to sing, and
build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon
his wat'ry 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
favour my destin'd urn,
And as he passes turn
And bid fair peace be
to my sable shroud!
For
we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by
fountain, shade, and rill;
Together both, ere the
high lawns appear'd
Under the opening
eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield, and
both together heard
What time the gray-fly
winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks
with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that
rose at ev'ning bright
Toward heav'n's
descent had slop'd his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural
ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to th'oaten
flute;
Rough Satyrs danc'd,
and Fauns with clov'n heel,
From the glad sound
would not be absent long;
And old Damætas lov'd
to hear our song.
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
Clos'd o'er the head
of your lov'd 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,
Nor yet where Deva
spreads her wizard stream.
Ay me! I fondly dream
Had ye bin 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,
And think to burst out
into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury
with th'abhorred shears,
And slits the
thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and
touch'd my trembling ears;
"Fame is no plant
that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering
foil
Set off to th'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
Heav'n expect thy meed."
O
fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood,
Smooth-sliding
Mincius, crown'd 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 ask'd the waves,
and ask'd the felon winds,
"What hard mishap
hath doom'd this gentle swain?"
And question'd 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 stray'd;
The air was calm, and
on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all
her sisters play'd.
It was that fatal and
perfidious bark,
Built in th'eclipse,
and rigg'd 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 inscrib'd 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 spar'd 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 reck'ning 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
A sheep-hook, or have
learn'd 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, swoll'n 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,
And call the vales and
bid them hither cast
Their bells and
flow'rets 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 enamel'd eyes,
That on the green turf
suck the honied 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 freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the
well attir'd woodbine,
With cowslips wan that
hang the pensive head,
And every flower that
sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his
beauty shed,
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
Wash far away,
where'er thy bones are hurl'd;
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,
Sleep'st by the fable
of Bellerus old,
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 wat'ry 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
Through the dear might
of him that walk'd 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
recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in
that perilous flood.
Thus
sang the uncouth swain to th'oaks and rills,
While the still morn
went out with sandals gray;
He touch'd the tender
stops of various quills,
With eager thought
warbling his Doric lay;
And now the sun had
stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropp'd
into the western bay;
At last he rose, and
twitch'd his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
John Milton was
born in London on December 9, 1608, into a middle-class family. He was educated
at St. Paul’s School, then at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he began to
write poetry in Latin, Italian, and English, and prepared to enter the clergy.
After university,
however, he abandoned his plans to join the priesthood and spent the next six
years in his father’s country home in Buckinghamshire following a rigorous
course of independent study to prepare for a career as a poet. His extensive
reading included both classical and modern works of religion, science,
philosophy, history, politics, and literature. In addition, Milton was
proficient in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian, and obtained
a familiarity with Old English and Dutch as well.
During his period
of private study, Milton composed a number of poems, including "On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity," "On
Shakespeare," “L’Allegro," “Il
Penseroso," and the pastoral elegy "Lycidas.” In May of 1638, Milton began a 13-month tour of France
and Italy, during which he met many important intellectuals and influential
people, including the astronomer Galileo, who appears in Milton’s tract against
censorship, “Areopagitica.”
In 1642, Milton
returned from a trip into the countryside with a 16-year-old bride, Mary
Powell. Even though they were estranged for most of their marriage, she bore
him three daughters and a son before her death in 1652. Milton later married
twice more: Katherine Woodcock in 1656, who died giving birth in 1658, and
Elizabeth Minshull in 1662.
During the English
Civil War, Milton championed the cause of the Puritans and Oliver Cromwell, and
wrote a series of pamphlets advocating radical political topics including the
morality of divorce, the freedom of the press, populism, and sanctioned
regicide. Milton served as secretary for foreign languages in Cromwell’s
government, composing official statements defending the Commonwealth. During
this time, Milton steadily lost his eyesight, and was completely blind by 1651.
He continued his duties, however, with the aid of Andrew Marvell and other
assistants.
After the
Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, Milton was arrested as a
defender of the Commonwealth, fined, and soon released. He lived the rest of
his life in seclusion in the country, completing the blank-verse epic poem Paradise Lost in 1667, as well as its sequel Paradise Regained and the tragedy Samson Agonistes both in 1671. Milton oversaw the
printing of a second edition of Paradise
Lost in 1674, which included
an explanation of “why the poem rhymes not," clarifying his use of blank
verse, along with introductory notes by Marvell. He died shortly afterwards, on
November 8, 1674, in Buckinghamshire, England.
Paradise Lost, which chronicles Satan’s temptation of Adam and
Eve and their expulsion from Eden, is widely regarded as his masterpiece and
one of the greatest epic poems in world
literature. Since its first publication, the work has continually elicited
debate regarding its theological themes, political commentary, and its
depiction of the fallen angel Satan who is often viewed as the protagonist of
the work.
