Had ye been there-for what could that have done?
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 Neæra'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,

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70

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
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,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds!
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,

And listens to the herald of the sea

That came in Neptune's plea:

He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain?

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80

85

90

58. Orpheus, torn in pieces by the Bac- than these; nor more justly instructive chanalian women, called the rout.

67. As others use. Warton supposes that Milton here had reference to the Scotch poet Buchanan, who unbecomingly prolonged his amorous descant to graver years. Amaryllis and Næra are two of Buchanan's lady-loves, and the golden hair of the latter makes quite a figure in his verses. In his last Elegy he raises the following extravagant fie tion on the luxuriant tangles of this lady's hair. Cupid is puzzled how to subdue the icy poet. His arrows can do nothing. At length he hits upon the stratagem of cutting a golden lock from Newra's heal, white she is asleep, with which the poet is bound, and thus entangled he is delivered a prisoner to Nera.

70. Fame is the spur. No lines have been more often cited and more popular

and inspiring. 75. Fury, Destiny.

76. But not the praise. But the praise is not intercepted." While the poet, in the character of a shepherd, is moraliz ing on the uncertainty of human life, Phoebus interposes with a sublime strain, above the tone of pastoral poetry. He then in an abrupt and elliptical apos trophe, at "O fountain Arethuse," has tily recollects himself, and apologizes to his rural Muse, or in other words to Arethusa and Mincius, the celebrated streams of Bucolic song, for having so suddenly departed from pastoral allusions, and the tenor of his subject.-T. WARTON.

85. Arethuse: see note to line 31 of "Arcades." Mincius is a stream in Cisalpine Gaul, that flows into the Po, near Mantua, and is often mentioned by Virgil 91. The felon winds, the cruel winds.

And question'd every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory:
They knew not of his story;

And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd;
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower, inscribed with woe.
Ah! who hath reft, quoth he, my dearest pledge?
Last came, and last did go,

The pilot of the Galilean lake:

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain;

110

The golden opes, the iron shuts amain:

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:

How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,

Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake

Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!

115

Of other care they little reckoning make,

Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest!

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!

120

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs

94. Beaked promontory, one projecting like the beak of a bird.

96. Hippotades, a patronymic noun, applied to Eolus, the god of winds, and son of Hippotas.

99. Punope, one of the Nereids. 100. That fatal bark. The ship in which "Lycidas" was wrecked.

103. Camus, the river Cam, that flowed

by Cambridge university, where Lycidas (Mr. King) was educated."

104. The hairy mantle and sedge bonnet may refer to the rushy or reedy banks of the Cam; and the figures dim, to the in istinct and dusky streaks or sedge leaves or flags, when beginning to wither. Warton remarks that perhaps the poet himself had no very clear or determinate idea; but in obscure and mysterious expressions, leaves something to be supplied or explained by the reader's imag

nation.

106. Sanguine flower. "Commentators," as Coleridge says, "have a notable trick of passing siccissimis pedibus (with the driest feet') over really difficult places," and no one has remarked upon the "flower" here alluded to. I think it is

the Hyacinth, said to have sprung from the blood of the youth of that name, killed by Apollo. Ovid, a favourite author with Milton, in describing this event, (Met. Lib. x. Fab. vi. line 54,) uses almost the same language:

"Ipse suos gemitus folils inscribit: et, ai, al, Flos habet inscriptum."

his own lamentations upon its leaves, That is, "the God himself inscribes and the flower has ai, ai, written upon it" or, as Pliny explains it, its veins and fibres so run as to make the figure ai, the Greek interjection of grief.

107. Drarest pledge. Children were called by the Romans pignora, "pledges."

109. The pilot: Peter. Two massy keys: Alluding to Matt. xvi. 19.

114. Milton here animadverts on the
time insinuating that they were shared
endowments of the church, at the same
by those only who sought the emolu
ments of the sacred office, to the exclu-
Thus in Paradise Lost (iv. 192:)
sion of a learned and conscientious clergy.

So clomb the first grand thief into God's fold;
So, since, into his church lewd hirelings climb.

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw:
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed;

But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing sed:
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 enamell'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied 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 freak'd 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 daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat herse 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'er thy bones are hurl'd;
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,

124. Scrannel, thin, lean, meagre. 129. Nothing sed. Here Milton probably alludes to those prelates and clergy of the established church who enjoyed fat salaries without performing any duties; who "sheared the sheep but did not feed them." Sed, for said.

130 and 131. In these lines our author anticipates the execution of Archbishop Laud, by a two-handed engine, that is, the axe; insinuating that his death would remove all grievances in religion, and complete the reformation of the church.-WARTON. The sense is, "But there will soon be an end of all these evils; the axe is at hand to take off the head of him who has been the great abettor of these corruptions of the gospel. This will be done by one stroke."

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130

135

140

145

150

155

160

133. That shrunk. In other words, "that silenced my pastoral poetry." The Sicilian muse is now to return, with all her store of rural imagery.-T. WARTON. 136. Use, to frequent, to inhabit. 138. Swart-star, the dog-star, so called because it turns the complexion swart, or brown. So Browne, in his pastorals, "the swart plowman."

154. Ah me! Here Mr. Dunster observes, the burst of grief is intinitely beautiful, when properly connected with what precedes it, and to which it refers.

158. Monstrous world; that is, the sea, the world of monsters.

159. Moist vows, our vows accompanied with tears.

160. Bellerus was the name of a Cor-. nish giant. On the south-western shores

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, woful shepherds, weep no more;
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,

165

Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor:
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,

170

Through the dear might of Him that walk'd 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
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay:
And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay:
At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

of Cornwall there is a stupendous pile of rock-work called the "giant's chair;" and not far from Land's End is another most romantic projection of rock, called St. Michael's Mount. There was a tradition that the "Vision" of St. Michael, seated on this crag, or St. Michael's chair, appeared to some hermits. The sense of this and the following lines connected with the preceding, is this:-"Let every flower be strewed on the hearse where Lycidas lies, so as to flatter ourselves for a moment with the notion that his corpse is present; and this (ah me!) while the seas are wafting it here and there, whether beyond the Hebrides, or near these shores of Cornwall, &c.

162. Namancos is marked in the early editions of Mercstor's Atlas as in Galliia, on the north-west coast of Spain, near Cape Finisterre. Bayona is the strong castle of the French, in the southwestern extremity of France, near the Pyrenees. In that same atlas this castle makes a very conspicuous figure.

gray;

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180

185

190

163. Here is an apostrophe to the angel Michael, seated on the guarded mount. "Oh angel, look no longer seaward to Namancos and Bayona's hold: rather turn your eyes to another object: look homeward or landward; look towards your own coast now, and view with pity the corpse of the shipwrecked Lycidas, floating thither."-T. WARTON.

165. Weep no more. Milton, in this sudden and beautiful transition from the gloomy and mournful strain into that of hope and comfort, imitates Spenser, in his Eleventh Ecloque, where, bewailing the death of some maiden of great blood in terms of the utmost grief and dejection, he breaks out all at once in the 8ame manner.-THYER.

181. And wipe the tears. Isa. xxv. 8; Rev. vii. 17.

188. Stops, the holes of a flute.

189. This is a Dorick lay because Theocritus and Moschus had respectively written a Bucolic on the deaths of Daphnis and Bion.

THE particular beauties of this charming pastoral are too striking to need much descanting upon; but what gives the greatest grace to the whole, is that natural and agreeable wildness and irregularity which run quite through it, than which nothing could be better suited to express the warm affection which Milton had for his friend, and the extreme grief he was in for the loss of him. Grief is eloquent, but not formal.-THYER.

Addison says, that he who desires to know whether he has a true taste for history or not, should consider whether he is pleased with Livy's manner of telling a story; so, perhaps it may be said, that he who wishes to know whether he has a true taste for poetry or not, should consider whether he is highly delighted or not with the perusal of Milton's "Lycidas." If I might venture to place Milton's works, according to their degrees of poetic excellence, it should be perhaps in the following order: Paradise Lost, Comus, Samson Agonistes, Lycidas, L'Allegro, II Penseroso. The last three are in such an exquisite strain, says Fenton, that though he had left no other monuments of his genius behind him, his name had been immortal.-Jos. WARTON.

In this piece there is perhaps more poetry than sorrow: but let us read it for its poetry. It is true, that passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of "rough Satyrs with cloven heel:" but poetry does this; and in the hands of Milton does it with a peculiar and irresistible charm. Subordinate poets exercise no invention, when they tell how a shepherd has lost his companion, and must feed his flocks alone, without any judge of his skill in piping: but Milton dignifies and adorns these common artificial incidents with unexpected touches of picturesque beauty, with the graces of sentiment, and with the novelties of original genius. It is objected "here is no art, for there is nothing new." To say nothing that there may be art without novelty, as well as novelty without art, I must reply that this objection will vanish, if we consider the imagery which Milton has raised from local circumstances. Not to repeat the use he has made of the mountains of Wales, the Isle of Man, and the river Dee, near which Lycidas was shipwrecked; let us recollect the introduction of the romantic superstition of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall, which overlooks the Irish Sea, the fatal scene of his friend's disaster.

But the poetry is not always unconnected with passion. The poet lavishly describes an ancient sepulchral rite, but it is made preparatory to a stroke of tenderness: he calls for a variety of flowers to decorate his friend's hearse, supposing that his body was present, and forgetting for a while that it was floating far off in the ocean. If he was drowned, it was some consolation that he was to receive the decencies of burial. This is a pleasing deception: it is natural and pathetic. But the real catastrophe recurs; and this circumstance again opens a new vein of imagination.

Dr. Johnson censures Milton for his allegorical mode of telling that he and Lycidas studied together, under the fictitious images of rural employments, in which, he says, there can be no tenderness; and prefers Cowley's lamentation of the loss of Harvey, the companion of his labours, and the partner of his discoveries. I know not, if in this similarity of subject Cowley has more tenderness; I am sure he has less poetry: I will allow that he has more wit, and more smart similes. The sense of our author's allegory on this occasion is obvious, and is just as intelligible as if he had used plain terms. It is a fiction, that, when Lycidas died, the woods and caves were deserted, and overgrown with wild thyme and luxuriant vines, and that all their echoes mourned; and that the green copses