Lycidas

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,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,

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

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 favour my destined urn,

And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!

        For we were nursed upon the self-same 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 grey-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 Damoetas loved to hear our song.

        But, oh! 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 Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.

Ay me! I fondly dream

Had ye been there,S . . . 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 uncessant 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 Neaera'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 the abhorred shears,

And slits the thin-spun life. RBut 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 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 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

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,

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge

Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.

Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, Rmy 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 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:

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,

And call the vales, and bid them hither cast

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,

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,

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 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 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,

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 watery 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 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 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 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:

Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

'This poem was made upon the unfortunate and untimely death of Mr. Edward King, son of Sir John King Secretary for Ireland, a fellow collegian and intimate friend of our author, who as he was going to visit his relations in Ireland, was drown'd on the 10th of August 1637, and in the 25th year of his age. The year following 1638 a small volume of poems Greek, Latin, and English, was printed at Cambridge in honor of his memory. ... The last poem in the collection was this of Milton, which by his own Manuscript appears to have been written in November 1637, when he was almost 29 years old: and these words in the printed titles of this poem, "and by occasion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth," are not in the Manuscript. This poem is with great judgment made of the pastoral kind, as both Mr. King and Milton had been design'd for holy orders and the pastoral care, which gives a peculiar propriety to several passages in it: and in composing it the poet had an eye particularly to Virgil's 10th Eclogue lamenting the unhappy loves of Gallus, and to Spenser's pastoral poems upon the death of the Muses favourite, Sir Philip Sidney. The reader cannot but observe, that there are more antiquated and obsolete words in this than in any other of Milton's poems; which I conceive to be owing partly to his judgment, for he might think them more rustic, and better adapted to the nature of pastoral poetry; and partly to his imitating of Spenser, for as Spenser's stile is most antiquated, where he imitates Chaucer most, in his Shepherds Calendar, so Milton's imitations of Spenser might have the same effect upon the language of this poem. It is called a "monody," from a Greek word signifying a mournful or funeral song sung by a single person: and we have lately had two admirable poems publish'd under this title, one occasion'd by the death of Mr. Pope by a very ingenious poet of Cambridge, and the other to the memory of his deceas'd lady by a gentleman, whose excellent poetry is the least of his many excellencies.(Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere,): The laurel, as he was a poet, for that was sacred to Apollo; the myrtle, as he was of a proper age for love, for that was the plant of Venus; the ivy, as a reward of his learning. Hor. Od. I. I. 29. "---- doctarum ederae praemia frontium.""Ivy never sere," that is never dry, never wither'd, being one of the ever-greens. (line 3: I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude): This beautiful allusion to the unripe age of his friend, in which death "shatter'd his leaves before the mellowing year," is not antique, I think, but of those secret graces of Spenser. See his Eclogue of January in the Shepherd's Calendar. (line 14: Without the meed): Without the reward.(line 15: Begin them, Sisters of the sacred well, That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring): He means Hippocrene, a fountain consecrated to the Muses on mount Helicon, on the side of which was an altar of Heliconian Jupiter, as Hesiod says in the invocation for his poem on the generation of the Gods.(line 28: What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn): By the "gray-fly" in this palce is meant no doubt a brownish kind of beetle powder'd with a little white commonly known by the name of the cock-chaffer or dor fly. These in the hot summer months lie quiet all the day feeding upon the leaves of the oaks and willows, but about sunset fly about with just such a sort of noise as answers the poet's description. The author could not possibly have chosen a circumstance more proper and natural for a shepherd to describe a summer's evening by, nor have express'd it in a more poetical manner. -Thyer.(line 36: And old Damaetas...): He means probably Dr. William Chappel, who had been tutor to them both at Cambridge, and was afterwards Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland.(line 52: --- the steep,Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie, &c): Mr. Richardson's conjecture upon this passage, I think, is the best I have seen, that this "steep, where the Druids lie," is a place called Kerig y Drudion in the mountains of Denbighshire, or "Druids stones," because of the stone-chests or coffins, and other monuments there in abundance, supposed to have been of the Druids. See Camden. "Mona" is the ile of Angelsey, or the "shady iland" as it was called by the ancient Britons. And "Deva" is the river Dee, the meaning of which word "Deva" is by some supposed to be "God's water" or "divine water." See Camden's Cheshire. And for the same reason that it is here called "wisard stream," it has the name of "ancient hallow'd Dee" in our athor's "Vacation Exercise;"These places all look toward Ireland, and were famous for the residence of the Bards and Druids, who are distinguish'd by most authors, but Milton speaks of them as the same, and probably as priests they were Druids, and as poets they were Bards. For Caesar, who has given us the best and most authentic account of the ancient Druids, says that among other things they learn a great number of verses. Magnum ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur. De Bel. Gall. Lib. 6.(line 73: But the fair guerdon...): Prize, reward, recompense. A word from the French, often used by our old writers, and particularly Spenser.(line 75: Comes the blind Fury &c): Of the three fatal sisters, the first prepar'd the flax upon the distaff, the stamen of human life; the second spun it; and the third cut it off with her shears, when the destin'd hour was come. These were distinct from the Furies, but Milton calls the last a "blind Fury" in his indignation for her cutting his friend's untimely and undeserv'd.(line 89: --- the herald of the sea &c): Triton. Hippotades, AEolas the son of Hippotas, called "sage" from the fore-knowing the weather. Panope, a sea nymph: the word itself signifies that pure and calm and tranquillity that gives an unbounded prospect over the smooth and level brine; therefore "sleek" Panope. -Richardson.(line 103: Next Camus, reverend sire,...): The river Cam is fitly introduc'd upon this occasion, and is called "reverend sire," as both Mr. King and Milton were educated at Cambridge; and is described according to the nature of that river. "Went footing slow," as it is a gentle winding stream, according to Camden, who says the British word "Cam" signifies crooked. It abounds too with reeds and sedge, for which reason "his mantle" is "hairy, and his bonnet sedge," which is a testimony of his grief and mourning was "inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge like to" a hyacinth, "that sanguin flow'r" as it sprung according to the poets from the blood of the boy Hyacinthus or of Ajax, "inscrib'd with woe" as the leaves were imagin'd to be mark'd with the mournful letters AI AI. For these particulars you may consult the poets, and especially Ovid. (line 128: Besides what the grim wolf...): We offer'd some explication of this difficult passage in the Life of Milton, that the poet meant to accuse Archbishop Laud of privily introducing popery, and therefore in his zeal threaten'd him with the loss of his head; which notion was suggested to me by Dr. Pearce, the Lord Bishop of Bangor. ... "Besides what the grim wolf, &c" Besides what the popish priests privately pervert to their religion : and Spenser in his 9th Eclogue describes them under the same image of wolves, and complains much in the same manner."And nothing said,"... this agrees very well with the popular clamors of that age against the suppos'd connivance of the court at the propogation of popery. (line 160: Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,): Milton doubting which way the waves might carry the body of Lycidas, drowned in the Irish sea, imagins it was either driven northward beyond the Hebrides, or else so far southward as to lie sleeping near the fable, or fabulous mansions of old Bellerus, where the great vision of the guarded mount looks towards the coast of Spain. But where can we find the place which is thus obscurely described in the language of poetry and fiction? The place here meant is probably a promontory in Cornwal, known at present by the name of the Land's End, and called by Diodorus Sicullus "Belerium pomontorium," perhaps from the Bellerus one of the Cornish giants, with which that country and the poems of old British bards were once filled. A watch-tower and light-house formerly stood on this promontory, and looked, as Orosius says, towards another high tower at Brigantia in Gallicia, and consequently toward "Bayona's hold." "Meadowcourt." It may be farther observed, that Milton in his Manuscript had written "Corineus," and afterwards changed it for "Bellerus." Corineus came into this iland with Brute, and had that part of the country assign'd for his share, which after him was named Cornwal. "To Corineus, says Milton in the first book of his History of England, Cornwal, as we now call it, fell by lot; the rather by him lik'd, for that the hugest giants in rocks and caves were said to lurk still there; which kind of monsters to deal with was his old exercise." Of this race of giants, we may suppose, was Bellerus: but whoever he was, the alteration in Milton's Manuscript was certainly for the better, to take a person from whom that particular promontory was denominated, rather than one who gave name to the country at large. "The fable of Bellerus" and "the vision of the guarded mount" is plainly taken from some of our old romances, but we may perceive what place is intended, the Land's End, and St. Michael's mount in Cornwal.(last lines): Mr. Richardson conceives that by this last verse the poet says (pastorally) that he is hastening to, and eager on new works: but I rather believe that it was said in allusion to his travels into Italy, which he was now meditating, and on which he set out the spring following. I will conclude my remarks upon this poem with the just observation of Mr. Thyer. The particular beauties of this charming pastoral are too striking to need much descanting upon; but what gives the greatest grace to the whole is that natural and agreeable wildness and irregularity which runs quite through it, than which nothing could be better suited to express the warm affection which Milton had for his friend, and the extreme grief he was in for the loss of him. Grief is eloquent, but not formal.'~ Th. Newton, Milton's Works, 2nd edition, 1753.