That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed;
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters 1 played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in the eclipse,2 and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus,3 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 5 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 7 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.
1 The Nereids.

2 Everything done during an eclipse was said to be illomened. 3 The Cam (for Cambridge).

4 Said to be an allusion to the antiquity of Cambridge. 5 The hyacinth (see Class. Dict.), inscribed with marks said to resemble the Greek aɩ, alas! In an earlier edition of Lycidas, Milton introduces among his flowers of "sad embroidery "

"That sad flower that strove

To write his own woes on the vermeil grain."

6 St. Peter. King was preparing to take Holy Orders. 7 In bitter allusion to "our corrupted clergy."

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how

to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learnt ought else the least
That to the faithful herdsman's 1 art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They
are sped;

And when they list, their lean and flashy 2 songs
Grate on their scrannel 3 pipes of wretched straw:
The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But, swol❜n with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf 4 with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
-But that two-handed engine 5 by the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."
Return, Alphéus : the dread voice is past

That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, 6
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 star7 sparely
looks;

Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes

1 By a natural transition, the shepherd is first a poet,

then a pastor.

2 Insipid.

3 Thin.

4 The Church of Rome.

5 Probably used generally of the coming retribution.

6 Arethusa. See note 3, P. 395. The stream of lament for Lycidas had been checked by gloomier thoughts, but now flows on.

7 Variously explained as the Sun, the Dog-star, and Saturn. The last seems the most probable. Milton's flowers, though sad, are flowers not of death,-the Saturnine hellebore or nightshade, -but of life,-"vernal" and "of a thousand hues."

That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers;
Bring the rathe1 primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and white 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.2
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; 3
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus 4 old,
Where the great vision of the guarded Mount 5
Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold :
-Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with
ruth,

6

And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth!

Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more; For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

1 Early. So rather earlier, sooner.

2 Because he could never be laid "in English earth."

3 The world of monsters.

4 i.e. The fabled Bellerus: a giant's name, said to be coined from Bellerium (Cornwall).

5 St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall. 6 Both near Cape Finisterre.

7 St. Michael.

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 gray;
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric 1 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 pastures new.2
J. MILTON

1 The favourite dialect of pastoral poems: hence, pastoral. 2 See note 1, p. 28.

9. THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL

PRELUDE TO PART FIRST

OVER his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

Gives hope and fervour, nearer draws his theme, First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Not only around our infancy

Doth Heaven with all its splendours lie; 1
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.

Over our manhood bend the skies;
Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies;

With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood

Waits with its benedicite;

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us :
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in.

At the devil's booth are all things sold:
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

1 See Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality.