The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, 145 150 To strew the laureate herse where Lycid lies.— Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide. Doister, iii. 5, 'All the stock thou comest of, later or rather;' Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar (February), The rather lambs be starved with cold.' That forsaken dies.] That dies left in the shade, neglected, unvisited by the sun. Milton had first written, That unwedded dies; the thought being from Shaksp. Winter's Tale, iv. 3, 'Pale primroses that die unmarried, ere they can behold bright Phoebus in his strength.' Why the primrose is said to die unmarried is, according to Warton, 'because it grows in the shade, uncherished or unseen by the sun, which was supposed to be in love with some sorts of flowers.' The sun-flower was sometimes called the sun's spouse, because of going to sleep and waking with the sun. 155 Sleepest by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great Vision of the guarded Mount Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more, 160. 165 Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 170 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 Neptune, that he might give up the body of the drowned youth to his friends. 160. The fable of Bellerus old.] The promontory of Bellerium, at Land's End, so named from the fabled Cornish giant Bellerus. 161. The great Vision, &c.] The great Vision is the angel St. Michael. The guarded or fortified Mount is St. Michael's Mount, near the Land's End in Cornwall. A craggy seat in this Mount was called St. Michael's Chair. Warton says, 'There is still a tradition that a Vision of St. Michael seated on this crag appeared to some hermits, and that this circumstance occasioned foundation of the monastery dedicated to St. Michael.' the 162. Looks towards Namancos, &c.] Namancos and the castle 175 of Bayona were in Galicia, near Cape Finisterre. 163. Look homeward, &c.] 'O Angel,look no longer seaward, look landward, look towards your own coast now, and view with pity the corpse of the shipwrecked Lycidas floating thither.'-WARTON. 169. Repairs.] Recovers from declension or fatigue. 170. Tricks.] Sets off in array. So in Il Penseroso, l. 123, 'Not tricked and frounced as she was wont.' Ore.] Gold. Lat. aurum; Fr. or. 'Like some ore among a mineral of metals base.' Shaksp. Hamlet, iv. 1. And hears the unexpressive nuptial song, In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 180 185 190 188. Quills.] Reeds or pipes. 190. The sun had stretched 192. Twitched.] Plucked round LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET |