I shall be your faithful guide

Through this gloomy covert wide,

And not many furlongs thence

Is your Father's refidence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wish'd prefence, and befide
All the fwains,that near abide,
With jigs, and rural dance refort;
We shall catch them at their sport,
And our fudden coming there

955

960

Will double all their mirth and chear;
Come let us hafte, the ftars grow high,

965

But night fits monarch yet in the mid fky.

The Scene changes, prefenting Ludlow town and the Prefident's castle; then come in country-dancers, after them the attendent Spirit, with the two Brothers and the Lady.

SONG.

SPIR. Back, Shepherds, back, enough your play,

Till next fun-fhine holyday;

Here be without duck or nod

970

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and fuch court-guife,

As Mercury did first devise

With the mincing Dryades

On the lawns, and on the leas.

975

This fecond Song prefents them to their Father and

Mother.

Noble Lord and Lady bright,

I have brought you new delight,

Here behold fo goodly grown

Three fair branches of your own;

Heav'n hath timely try'd their youth,

980

Their faith, their patience, and their truth,

And fent them here thro' hard afsays With a crown of deathless praise,

To triumph in victorious dance

O'er fenfual folly and intemperance.

985

The dances ended, the Spirit epilogizes.

SPIR. To the ocean now I fly,

And thofe happy climes, that lie,
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:
There I fuck the liquid air

All amidst the gardens fair

Of Hefperus and his daughters three,
That fing about the golden tree:
Along the crifped shades and bowers

990

Revels the spruce and jocond spring,

995

The Graces, and the rofy-bofom'd Hours,

Waxing well of his deep wound

In flumber foft, and on the ground

Sadly fits th' Affyrian queen;

But far above in spangled sheen

Celestial Cupid her fam'd fon advanc'd,
Holds his dear Pfyche sweet intranc'd,
After her wand'ring labors long,
Till free confent the Gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted fide
Two blissful twins are to be born,

Youth and Joy; fo Jove hath fworn.
But now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run

1010

1015

1020

Quickly to the green earth's end,

Where the bow'd welkin flow doth bend,

1025

And from thence can foar as foon
To the corners of the moon.
Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue, fhe alone is free,
She can teach you how to clime
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would ftoop to her.

Oh! beauty! beauty!

1030

Where shall we find a praise, that's due

t'thee

XVII.

LYCIDAS *.

In this monody the Author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drown'd in his paffage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637, and by occafion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy then in their highth.

YE

ET 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 forc'd fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint. and fad occafion 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 fing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to fing and build the lofty rhime.
He must not flote upon his watry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind
Without the meed of fome melodious tear.

Begin then, Sifters of the facred well,

That from beneath the feat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and fomewhat loudly sweep the string.

This poem was made upon the unfortunate and untimely death of Mr. Edward King, fon of Sir John King, Secretary for Ireland, a fellow-collegian and intimate friend of Milton, who, as he was going to vifit his relations in Ireland, was drowned Aug. 10. 1637, in the 25th year of his age. This poem is with great judgment made of the paftoral kind, as both Mr. King and Milton had been defigned for holy orders and the paftoral care, which gives a peculiar propriety to several paffages in it.

Hence with denial vain and

coy excufe

So may fome gentle Muse

With lucky words favor
And, as he paffes,turn,

i

And bid fair peace be to my fable shroud.
For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,
Fed the fame 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 fultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft,till the ftar, that rofe at evening bright,

25

30

Tow'ard Heaven's descent had flop'd his weft'ring wheel.
Mean-while the rural ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to th' oaten flute,

Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad found would not be absent long,

And old Damætas lov'd to hear our fong.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,

Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and defert caves

35

With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown 40
And all their echoes mourn.

The willows and the hazel copfes green

Shall now no more be seen,

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy foft lays.

As killing, as the canker to the rose,

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds, that graze,
Or froft to flow'rs, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows,

Such, Lycidas, thy lofs to fhepherds ear.

L

45