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 daffodillies fill their cups with tears,

Illa tamen bimanus custodit machina portam,

Stricta, paratque malis plagam non amplius unam."

En, Alphee, redi! Quibus ima cohorruit unda
Voces prætcriere: redux quoque Sicelis omnes
Musa voca valles; huc pendentes hyacinthos
Fac jaciant, teneros huc flores mille colorum.
O nemorum depressa, sonant ubi crebra susurri
Umbrarum, et salientis aquæ, Zephyrique protervi ;
Queisque virens gremium penetrare Canicula parcit :
Picturata modis jacite huc mihi lumina miris,

Mellitos imbres queis per viridantia rura
Mos haurire, novo quo tellus vere rubescat.
Huc ranunculus, ipse arbos, pallorque ligustri,
Quæque relicta perit, vixdum matura feratur
Primula quique ebeno distinctus, cætera flavet
Flos, et qui specie nomen detrectat eburna.
Ardenti violæ rosa proxima fundat odores;
Serpyllumque placens, et acerbo flexile vultu

Verbascum, ac tristem si quid sibi legit amictum.

To strow 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 ere 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,

Quicquid habes pulcri fundas, amarante: coronent

Narcissi lacrymis calices, sternantque feretrum

Tectus ubi lauro Lycidas jacet: adsit ut oti

Saltem aliquid, ficta ludantur imagine mentes.
Me miserum! Tua nam litus, pelagusque sonorum

Ossa ferunt, quiescunque procul jacteris in oris ;
Sive procellosas ultra Symplegadas ingens

Jam subter mare visis, alit quæ monstra profundum ;
Sive (negarit enim precibus te Jupiter udis)
Cum sene Bellero, veterum qui fabula, dormis,
Qua custoditi montis prægrandis imago

Namancum atque arces longe prospectat Iberas.
Verte retro te, verte deum, mollire precando:
Et vos infaustum juvenem delphines agatis.
Ponite jam lacrymas, sat enim flevistis, agrestes.

Non periit Lycidas, vestri mororis origo,

Marmorei quanquam fluctus hausere cadentem.
Sic et in æquoreum se condere sæpe cubile

Luciferum videas; nec longum tempus, et effert

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,