Lycidas -- John Milton

Lycidas – John Milton

 

A LAMENT FOR A FRIEND DROWNED IN HIS PASSAGE FROM CHESTER ON THE IRISH SEAS, 1637

 

(In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately drowned in his Passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637. And by this 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 forced fingers rude,

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year,                                             5

Bitter constraints, 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 well knew                                           10

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme,

He must not float upon his watery bier

Un wept, and welter to the parching wind,

Without the meed of some melodious tear. 

 

Begin then, sisters of the sacred well,                                                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 destined urn,                                                    20

And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nursed upon the selfsame hill,

Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill. 

 

Together both, ere the high lawns appear’d                                       25        

Under the opening eye-lids of the morn.

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 evening bright,                                                    30

Toward heaven’s descent had slop’d his westering wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,

Tempered to th’ oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with clov’n heel

From the glad sound would not be absent long.                                             35

And old Damœtas loved to hear our song.

 

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 wine o’ergrown,                                       40

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.

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                         50

Closed 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 shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream:                                            55

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,                                                               60

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 trade,                                                  65

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 Naeaera’s hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise                                              70

(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.                                            75

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

Set off to th’ world, nor in broad rumour lies;                                               80

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 honoured flood,                                             85

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

That came in Neptune’s plea;                                                                         90

He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,

What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged winds

That blows from off each beaked promontory;

They knew not of his story,                                                                            95

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,

It was that fatal and perfidious bark                                                               100

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,

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge                                                 105

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 learned aught else the least                                        120

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 srannel pipes of wretched straw;

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,                                                   125

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,

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

Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues.                                               135

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,

That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers,                                         140

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,

The glowing violet                                                                                          145

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,                                                      150

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.

Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled,                                             155

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,                                                             160

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,                                165

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,

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore,                                        170

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,

With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,                                                      175

And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,

Is 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,                                                    180

And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;

Henceforth thou art the genuius of the shore,

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good,

To all that wander in that perilous flood.                                                       185

 

        Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills

While the still morn went out with sandals grey;

He touched the tender stops of various quills,

With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:

And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,                                             195

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. 

 

                          ----

 

 

 

The evolution of thought in Lycidas

 

Milton’s Lycidas is an elegiac poem in the pastoral vein on the death of his friend, Edward King. At the time of composition of this elegy, Milton was the victim of several conflicting thoughts and emotions. A careful study of the varying moods of the poem would reveal the fact that Milton was passing through a period of intense mental disturbance. The poem starts with an apology for breaking his resolve not to write any poetry until his genius was sufficiently mature for the purpose. A sad occasion, the unfortunate death of his friend Lycidas (Edward King), has compelled him to write a poem long before maturity. It would be churlish on his part to refuse, and so hoping for a similar service himself, he invokes the aid of the Muses.

 

He recollects the happy days he spent at the University of Cambridge with his dear friend. They were interested in the same subjects. Often, they would retire to the seclusion of the forest and spend their time in composing and singing songs. The undergraduates would crowd around them and dance. Even old Damoetas (a teacher) approved.

 

Milton finds it impossible to reconcile himself to his loss. He wonders what the nymphs were doing when the sea closed over his friend’s head. But this is an idle thought, for the nymphs would not have been in a position to help Lycidas. Even the great Muse, Calliope, was unable to do anything when her son Orpheus was lynched by the frenzied women of Thrace. 

 

Once again Milton thinks of his ideal in poetry and wonders whether he is right in consecrating himself to such an exacting, and distant, though noble, purpose. Doubt makes him imagine that it would perhaps be far better to write love poetry and secure immediate applause. Why should he try to win fame by scoring delights and living laborious days, when death might come at any moment? Phoebus Apollo suddenly appears and consoles him saying that true fame could be had only in heaven.

 

Milton returns to the pastoral strain and conducts an inquiry about the cause of Lycidas’ death. The waves and the winds are innocent. The sea was so calm that Penope and all her sisters played on it. The conclusion is arrived at that the tragedy was the result of the ship being built in an eclipse and rigged with ‘curses dark’. 

 

We have after this the procession of mourners. Camus, reverend sire, representing the University of Cambridge, comes and mourns the death of Lycidas. St. Peter, the pilot of the Galilean lake, who opens the gates of Heaven for the holy souls with golden key and with iron key he closes the gates of Heaven against the unholy souls, comes last and feels bitter, because in Lycidas has lost his only hope. The church is corrupt, and only a man like Lycidas could have saved it from ruin. Milton uses this opportunity to pour out his wrath on the corrupt clergymen of the time. He gives a grim picture of their utter selfishness and unfitness for the task. They poison the atmosphere with their foul doctrines and make no attempt to prevent the ever-increasing conversion to Catholicism. He predicts that these corrupt clergymen will soon meet with the punishment they deserve. 

 

After this violent outburst, he comes back once again to the peaceful pastoral strain. He invites the valleys to cast their flowers of varying hues and fragrances on the dead body of Lycidas. The body is, of course, not is being tossed about between the Hebrides and Land’s End. Anyway, Milton derives some consolation from imagining that his friend’s body is lying there to receive these blossoms. 

 

The poem concludes on a more joyous note, blending calm, dutiful resignation, and hopefulness. Milton realizes that there is no occasion for grief, for Lycidas, like the sun, has died only to rise in greater glory. He pictures him in heaven welcomed by the angels, the tears wiped forever from his eyes, and listening to the unexpressive, nuptial song. Milton appoints him also as the genius of the shore whose duty it would be to guard all who sail there. 

 

In Lycidas, Milton touches various moods and feelings. He seems to have been conscious of this himself when he refers in the concluding lines to the tender stops of various quills.  Lycidas is indeed a poem of varying moods. 

 

 

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Ode To The West Wind -- P. B. Shelley

 Ode To The West Wind — P. B. Shelley

 

I

 

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

 

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill 

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

 

  

II

 

Thou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion, 

Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, 

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

 

Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread

On the blue surface of thine airy surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

 

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: Oh, hear!

 

III

 

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, 

 

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, 

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

 

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou

For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh, hear!

 

 

                                  IV

 

If I were a dead leaf, thou mightiest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

 

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven

 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

 

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

 

 

V

 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What If my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

 

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

 

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

And, by the incantation of this verse,

 

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawakened earth

 

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

 

----

 

The wild west wind represents to Shelley one of the invisible forces of Nature whose presence he could feel everywhere. He is conscious of a strange affinity between himself and this all-pervading power. In this noble ode, he makes an impassioned appeal to the west wind to instil in him the same courage and hope it instils into everything in Nature. 

 

The poem commences with an apostrophe to the wild west wind which has the very essence of the autumn season in it. The dried and withered leaves feel the unseen presence of the wind, and are driven before it like ghosts fleeing from an enchanter. The leaves of various colours, resembling crowds suffering from plague, are swept along with incredible force by the west wind. It is, however, a preserver as well as a destroyer. It acts as a chariot to the winged seeds and takes them along to their dark wintry bed, where they rest throughout the bitter winter. When spring comes, gentle zephyr will awaken them to life. Flowers will spring up everywhere with beautiful colours and perfume the air. 

 

The clouds also feel the might of the west wind. They are like leaves falling from tangled branches of a gigantic tree high in the sky. They are of Heaven and Ocean. They are messengers of rain and lightning. Shaken by the wind they are driven into confused masses, of clouds from the dim verge of the horizon to the zenith’s height. They appear to the poet like the curls raised up by a breeze, on the head of some fierce Maenad (a frenzied worshipper of Bacchus, the god of wine). Then they shower rain. The west wind seems to sing the dirge of the dying year, to which the closing night will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, vaulted over by the clouds from which will burst black rain, fire, and hail. 

 

The Mediterranean is disturbed in its summer dreams and roused from its long sleep by the west wind. It has been sleeping, lulled by the gentle murmur of the clear streams, and sweetly dreaming of palaces and towns over-grown with moss and reflected in its own placid waters. So cloying is the sweetness of these visions that the sense faints picturing them. Even the water of the Atlantic are divided into chasms by the wind. When the west wind in its fury sweeps over them, the vegetation at the bottom of the sea recognizes its voice, dreads it, suddenly grows grey with fear, trembles and sheds all its leaves. 

 

In the concluding stanzas of the Ode, Shelley voices a prayer to the wild west wind. If he had been a dead leaf that it might bear, a swift cloud to fly with it, or a wave to pant beneath its power and share the impulse of its strength, we could have been happy. If he had at least preserved the dreams and ideals of his boyhood, when it was no vain hope to attempt to outstrip the speed of the west wind, he could have dispensed with this prayer. Age has brought him bitterness and disappointments. His ideals have been shattered. Worldly customs and conventions weigh down one who is, like the west wind, tameless and swift and proud. He has fallen on the thorns of life and is bleeding. He passionately appeals to the west wind to lift him as a wave, a leaf, or a cloud, and save him from further agony.   

 

Like the forest, he wishes to become a passive instrument through which the wind can express itself. What does it matter, he askes, if his leaves also are falling like the leaves of the forest? The mighty harmonies of the wild west wind can take a melancholy autumnal tone from both. The very sadness of the music will add to its sweetness.  

 

The poet calls on the impetuous and fierce spirit of the west wind to inspire him, and drive away his dead thoughts like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth. He prays for his words to spread among mankind like ashes and sparks from an unextinguished hearth. Through his lips, the west wind should deliver this great message of optimism and hope — ‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’

 

The poem concludes on a note of hope. Shelley’s ideals may have been shattered, but he has not lost faith. He is sure that better times are in sight which would prove that his dreams have not been in vain. 

 

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Ode To A Skylark - P. B. Shelley

Ode To A Skylark — P. B. Shelley

 

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from Heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.                                                       

 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.                                   

 

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O’er which clouds are bright’ning, 

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.                                           

 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven 

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight;                                        

 

Keen as are the arrows 

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.                                                

 

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,

As when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.                        

 

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.                                       

 

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,

Singing hymns unbidden

Till the world is wrought

To Sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not;                                   

 

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,

Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:                           

 

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aerial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view;                

 

Like a rose embower’d 

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflower’d 

Till the scent it gives 

Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves.                 

 

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,

Rain-awaken’d flowers,

All that ever was 

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, the music doth surpass.                                 

 

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoguths are thine!

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood or rapture so divine.

 

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chaunt,

Match’d ith thine would be all

But an empty vaunt—

A thing wherein we feel there is some bidden want.

 

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strains?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be:

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:

Thou lovest; but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.

 

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

 

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

 

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

 

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow

The world should listen then — as I am listening now!

 

                   ----

 

The skylark is greeted as a cheerful spirit. It could never have been a bird. For it sends down sweet music from near heaven. The music is not merely sweet, but also copious, and it is sung effortlessly.

 

The bird seems to be flying up higher and higher, like a column of fire towering upwards. It sings and soars at the same time.

 

While the sun is setting, the bird flies about singing. It seems like the very spirit of happiness. Even thought it is evening, the music continues to be fresh and effortless. After sunset, the bird continues flying. During day and night, it is always heard, but it remains unseen.

 

The morning star shines brightly before daybreak, but at dawn fades, though we still feel that it is there. Similarly, from the music of the bird, we can sense its presence.

 

It fills the earth and air with its sweet music, like the moon shedding its light all over the world.

 

We do not know anything about the bird, except that it rains out music clouds, lit by a rainbow, sending out showers.

 

The bird, however, can be understood in some way by comparing it with what we know better. It is like a poet remains unknown, but whose work influences he hopes and feelings of the world. Again, it is like a princess in the palace tower, who cannot be seen, but whose love-songs can be heard. It can also be compared to a glow-worm hidden amidst dew, but is a centre of radiating light. A rose hidden among its own leaves, but spreading out perfume, is like the invisible skylark whose music is heard. 

 

Everything joyous, clear, and fresh, like the sound of rain in spring or the blossoming of flowers in rain, is less delightful than the skylark’s music. For the song of the skylark is an expression of perfect rapture. The poet wonders what thoughts could have induced such pure joy. Marriage songs or music celebrating a victory may be full of joy. But even they do not express happiness in all its perfection. 

 

The poet wonders about the source of the ecstatic music of the bird. Is it inspired by river or sea, sky, mountain, or plain? Is it due to love for other birds? How does the skylark manage to remain unaware of sorrow?

 

The bird is so full of joy that it can never have felt listlessness, not experienced annoyance. Human love starts in joy but ends in satiation. The skylark continues to love without experiencing satiation.

 

The bird must clearly know the truth about death which gives peace of mind. Otherwise, the music cannot be so clear and continuous. Men think of the past and future.  They are always discontented with the present. Even when they laugh sincerely, they suffer from some hidden sorrow. Their sweetest songs are based on tragic themes. Even if men give up hate, pride, and fear, and even if there should be no need for them to weep, even then their joy will be less perfect than the skylark’s.

 

The skylark never seems to be resting on the earth. Its musical talent is needed by the poet more than all human music and all the riches of wisdom written down in books.

 

The poet begs the skylark to teach him to experience half of its joy. That would be sufficient to make him write poetry that will attract the world’s attention, even as the bird’s music has now made him listen to it with undivided attention. 

 

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