Mortals that would follow me, Love virtue, fhe alone is free," She can teach you how to clime Higher than the fphery chime; Or if virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

POEMS,

UPON

SEVERAL OCCASIONS,

Compofed at feveral Times.

BY JOHN MILTON.

Baccare frontem

Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro.

Virgil. Eclog. 7.

LYCIDA S.

In this Monody the Author bewails a learned friend unfortunately drown'd in his paffage from Chefter on the Irish feas, 1637. And by occafion foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy then in their height.

YE

ET once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-fear,
I come to pluck your berries harth 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 feafon 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 rhyme,
He must not flote upon his watry bier

Unwept, and welter to the pàrching wind,
Without the meed of fome melodious tear.
Begin then, fifters of the facred well,
That from beneath the feat of Jove doth fpring,
Begin, and fomewhat louder fweep the ftring.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excufe,

So

may fome gentle Mufe

With lucky words favour my deftin'd urn,

And as he paffes turn,

And bid fair peace

be to my

fable fhroud.

For we were nurs'd upon the felf fame hill,

Fed the fame flock, by fountain, fhade, 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, Toward heav'n's defcent had flop'd his weftering 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 abfent long,
And old Damætas lov'd to hear our fong.

But

the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee fhepherd, thee the woods, and defart caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn.

The willows, and the hazel copfes green,
Shall now no more be seen,

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft layes,

As killing as the canker to the rose,

Or taint-worm to the weaning herds that graze,
Or frot to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When firft the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy lofs to fhepherds ear.

Where were ye nymphs, when the remorfelefs deep Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?

For neither were you playing on the steep,
Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the fhaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva fpreads her wisard stream:
Ah me, I fondly dream!

Had ye been there

-for what could that have done? What could the mufe herfelf that Orpheus bore,

The Mufe herfelf, for her inchanting fon
Whom univerfal nature did lament,

When by the rout that made the hideous roar,

His goary vifage down the ftream was fent,