III. SONG. Nymph and Shepherds, dance no more On old Lycæus, or Cyllene hoar, Bring your flocks, and live with us; To serve the Lady of this place. Though Syrinx2 your Pan's mistress were, Yet Syrinx well might wait on her, Such a rural Queen All Arcadia hath not seen. ''Ladon,' &c.: ancient rivers.—2 Syrinx:' see Ben Jonson's Syrinx. MINOR POEMS. LYCIDAS. A MONODY. In this MONODY, the Author bewails a learned Friend,' unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637. And by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth. YET once more,2 O ye laurels, and once more I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude; Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year: 1 Edward King, Esq., the son of Sir John King, knight, secretary for Ireland. He was sailing from Chester to Ireland, on a visit to his friends in that country, when in calm weather, not far from the English coast, the ship struck upon a rock, and suddenly sunk to the bottom with all that were on board, August 10, 1637. Mr King was a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, and was only twenty-five years of age at his death. He had been distinguished at college by his piety and learning; and the year after his death there appeared a collection of elegiac verses on his loss-three in Greek, nineteen in Latin, and thirteen in English-Milton's being the last in the collection. King had been intended for the Church.-Once more:' meaning, I am again called back to poetry, by a distressing necessity, from other studies. He must not float upon his watery bier Begin then, Sisters1 of the sacred well, 2 So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destin'd urn; And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill. Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd Under the opening eye-lids of the morn, We drove afield, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft, till the star, that rose, at evening, bright, Toward heaven's descent had slop'd his westering wheel. Mean while the rural ditties were not mute, Temper'd to the oaten flute; Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone, The willows, and the hazel copses green, Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 1 Sisters: Muses. - Sacred well:' Helicon. As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear. Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Clos'd o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep,1 Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor yet where Deva3 spreads her wisard stream: Had ye been there-for what could they have done? Whom universal Nature did lament, When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, To scorn delights, and live laborious days; And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Steep: the mountains of Denbighshire.-2 Mona:' the Isle of Man.Deva: the English Dee beside Chester, called 'wisard,' as the sacred boundary between Wales and England. The Muse: Calliope. - 'Orpheus:' torn in pieces by the Bacchanalians.-6 Hebrus:' a river in Thrace. 76 'Amaryllis,' &c.: see Horace. Comes the blind Fury1 with the abhorred shears, Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies; Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood, 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? And question'd every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each beaked promontory: They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotades3 their answer brings, Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 16 'Fury: Destiny. 2 Arethuse' and 'Mincius:' celebrated ancient streams of pastoral song. of the winds.- 'Camus:' Hippotades: Eolus, the son of Hippotas, ruler genius of the river Cam. |