Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow town, and the President's castle; then come in country Dancers; after them, the ATTENdant Spirit, with the two BROTHERS and the LADY.

SONG.

Spirit. Back, Shepherds! back; enough your play,

Till next sun-shine holiday;

Here be, without duck or nod,

Other trippings to be trod

[blocks in formation]

This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother.

Noble lord, and lady bright,

960

965

I have brought ye new delight;

Here behold so goodly grown

Three fair branches of your own :

Heav'n hath timely tri'd their youth,

970

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

LYCIDA S.

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 height.

YET 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 sad occasion 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 sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his wat'ry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, sisters of the sacred well,

5

110

15

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string:
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,

So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favour my destin❜d urn;
And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we were nurst 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 eyelids of the morn,

20

25

We drove afield; and both together heard

What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,

Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at ev'ning, bright,

30

Toward Heav'ns descent had slop'd his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,

Temper'd to th' oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs danc't, and Fauns with clov'n heel

From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old Damoetas lov'd to hear our song.

35

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone!
Now thou art gone, and never must return!

Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn.

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

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.

40

As killing as the canker to the rose,

45

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;--

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.

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

50

For neither were ye playing on the steep,

Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie;

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high;

33

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wisard stream:
Ay me, I fondly dream!

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 Neaera'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,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,

And slits the thin-spun life." But not the praise,"
Phoebus repli'd, and touch't my trembling ears:
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistring foil

55

[blocks in formation]

Set off to th' world, nor in broad rumour lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfet witness of all-judging Jove;

80

As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed."

O fountain Arethuse! and thou honour'd flood,

85

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't the waves, and ask't 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 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

100

Built in th' 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,

105

Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd 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 mitr'd locks, and stern bespake:

"How well could I have spar'd 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 reck'ning 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 sheephook, or have learn'd aught else the least

120

That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

And when they list, their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw:

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,

125

But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,

[blocks in formation]

But that two-handed engine at the door

130

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

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »