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To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,

Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?

70 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,

75 Comes the blind Fury with the abhorrèd shears, And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"

Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil

80 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,

85

Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed."
O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned 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,

90 That came in Neptune's plea.

He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle

swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beakèd promontory.

95 They knew not of his story;

And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed:
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
100 It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in the eclipse, and rigged 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, 105 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;

110 Two massy keys he bore of metals twain
(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,
115 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
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

120 A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least

That to the faithful herdman'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; 125 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 said. 130 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 135 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 enamelled eyes, 140 That on the green turf suck the honeyed 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 freaked with jet, 145 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,

150 And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,

To strew the laureate hearse 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 155 Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled; 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, 160 Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,

165

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, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

170 And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled

ore

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,

Through the dear might of Him that walked the

waves,

Where, other groves and other streams along,
175 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,

180 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
185 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 gray:
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
190 And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay.

At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

SONNET

ON HIS HAVING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE

(1631)

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,

But

my

late spring no bud nor blossom shew'th.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arrived so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.

Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even

To that same lot, however mean or high,

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Towards which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.

SONNET

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT

(1655)

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they

To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

SONNET

ON HIS BLINDNESS

(From Poems, etc., 1673. Written cir. 1655 ?)

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide

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