Mortals that would follow me,
Love Virtue, fhe alone is free,
She can teach you how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her.
LYCID A S.
In this monody the author bewails a learned friend *, unfortunately drown'd in his paffage from Chester on the Irish feas, 1637, and by occafion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth.
ET once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never fere,
come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and fad occafion dear,
Compels me to disturb
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not fing for Lycidas? he knew
Himfelf to fing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not flote upon his watry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of fome melodious tear.
Begin then, Sifters of the facred well,
That from beneath the feat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly fweep the string.
Mr. Edward King, fon of Sir John King Secretary for Ireland, a fellow-collegian and intimate friend of our author.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may fome gentle Muse
With lucky words favor my deftin'd urn,
And as he paffes turn,
And bid fair peace
For we were nurst upon the self-fame hill,
Fed the fame 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 fultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night
Oft till the star that rofe, at evening, bright,
Tow'ard Heav'n's defcent had flop'd his weftering
wheel.
Mean while the rural ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to the oaten flute,
Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad found would not be abfent long,
And old Damætas lov'd to hear our fong.
But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and defert caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 40
And all their echoes mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copfes green,
Shall now no more be seen,
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy foft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or froft to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When firft the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy lofs to fhepherds' ear.
Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the fhaggy top of Mona high,
where Deva spreads her wisard stream: 55 Ay me! I fondly dream
Had ye
been there, for what could that have done?
What could the Mufe herself that Orpheus bore,
The Mufe herself for her inchanting fon,
Whom univerfal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His goary vifage down the stream was fent,
Down the fwift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with inceffant care
To tend the homely flighted fhepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others ufe,
To fport with Amaryllis in the fhade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
Fame is the fpur that the clear spi'rit doth raise (That laft infirmity of noble mind)
To fcorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into fudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And flits the thin-fpun life. But not the praife,
Phoebus reply'd, and touch'd my trembling ears;
VOL. XII.
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal foil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to th' world, nor in broad rumor lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces laftly on each deed,
Of fo much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed.
O fountain Arethufe, and thou honor'd flood,
Smooth-fliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,
And liftens to the herald of the fea
That came in Neptune's plea ;
He afk'd the waves, and ask'd the fellon winds,
What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain?
And question'd every guft of rugged winds
That blows from off each beaked promontory;
They knew not of his story,
And fage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon ftray'd,
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her fifters play'd.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark
Built in th' eclipfe, and rigg'd with curses dark,
That funk fo low that facred head of thine.
Next Camus, reverend fire, went footing flow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet fedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that fanguin flower infcrib'd with woe.
Ah! who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge?
Laft came, and last did go,
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