| |
| YET 1 once more, O ye Laurels, and once more | |
| Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear, | |
| I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, | |
| And with forc’d fingers rude, | |
| Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. | 5 |
| 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 flote upon his watry bier | |
| Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, | |
| Without the meed of som melodious tear … | |
| |
| For we were nurst upon the self-same hill, | 15 |
| Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill. | |
| Together both, ere the high Lawns appear’d | |
| Under the opening eye-lids of the morn, | |
| We drove a field, and both together heard | |
| What time the Gray-fly winds her sultry horn, | 20 |
| Batt’ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night, | |
| Oft till the Star that rose, at Ev’ning, bright | |
| Toward Heav’ns descent had slop’d his westering wheel … | |
| |
| But O the heavy change, now thou art gon, | |
| Now thou art gon, and never must return! | 25 |
| Thee Shepherd, thee the Woods, and desert Caves, | |
| With wilde Thyme and the gadding Vine o’ergrown, | |
| And all their echoes mourn. | |
| The Willows, and the Hazle Copses green, | |
| Shall now no more be seen, | 30 |
| Fanning their joyous Leaves to thy soft layes. | |
| As killing as the Canker to the Rose, | |
| Or Taint-worm to the weanling Herds that graze, | |
| Or Frost to Flowers, that their gay wardrop wear, | |
| When first the White thorn blows; | 35 |
| Such, Lycidas, thy loss to Shepherds ear … | |
| |
| Alas! What boots it with uncessant care | |
| To tend the homely slighted Shepherds trade, | |
| And strictly meditate the thankles Muse, | |
| Were it not better don as others use, | 40 |
| 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 dayes; | 45 |
| 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, | |
| Phœbus repli’d, and touch’d my trembling ears; | 50 |
| 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 spreds aloft by those pure eyes, | |
| And perfet witnes of all judging Jove; | 55 |
| As he pronounces lastly on each deed, | |
| Of so much fame in Heav’n expect thy meed … | |
| |
| Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more, | |
| For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, | |
| Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar, | 60 |
| 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, | 65 |
| Through the dear might of him that walk’d the waves | |
| Where other groves, and other streams along, | |
| With Nectar pure his oozy Lock’s he laves, | |
| And hears the unexpressive nuptiall Song, | |
| In the blest Kingdoms meek of joy and love. | 70 |
| 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 … | |
