Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were, Yet Syrinx well might wait on her.

Such a rural queen

All Arcadia hath not seen.

END OF ARCADES.

LYCIDAS.

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 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,
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
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, [wheel.
Temper'd to the oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damotas loved 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 gadding vine o'er-grown,
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 Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? [deep 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!

[done?
Had ye been there for what could that have
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 Nemra'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 sheers,
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 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 honour'd flood,