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 highth. YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude: Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year: 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 highth. YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude: Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year: Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destin'd urn; 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 eye-lids of the morn, We drove afield, and both together heard What time the gray-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 slop'd his westering wheel. Mean while the rural ditties were not mute, Temper'd to the oaten flute : Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long: And old Damætas lov'd to hear our song. But, the heavy change, how thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desart caves With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown; And all their echoes mourn : The willows, and the hazel copses green, Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, 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? Nor yet where Deva spreads her wisard stream: 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, Whom universal Nature did lament, When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, Alas! what boots it with incessant care To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, |