Lycidas – John Milton
(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 harash 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 knew 10
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, 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 self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared 25
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the grey-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
Towards heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to th’ oaten flute;
Rough Satyrs dance, and Fauns with cloven heel,
From the glad sound would not be absent long, 35
And old Damætas loved to hear our song.
But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
Thee, shephered, thee the woods, and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine 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-worn 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
Clased o’er the head of your loved 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 die 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 shephered’s 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 Neæra’s hair?
Fame is the sour 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. “Rust not the praise.”
Phœbus 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 wings
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 perlidious 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 are 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,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;’
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw,
Daily devours a pace, 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 frails 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 Bayons’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,
In 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, an 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, 190
And now was dropt into the western bay;
At last he rose, and twitched his
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
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Lycidas – John Milton (Summary)
“Lycidas” is a pastoral elegy written by the English poet John Milton in 1637, dedicated to his friend Edward King, who had drowned at Irish sea. The poem is known for its intricate structure, rich imagery, and its exploration of themes such as grief, mortality, and the fragility of life.
The poem is presented as a monody, a lament for the dead, and is written in the form of a pastoral elegy, a genre that draws on the conventions of classical poetry to express grief and lamentation. The central speaker of the poem mourns the loss of Lycidas, the drowned shepherd, and reflects on the unfairness of his early death.
The poem begins with the speaker calling on the Muses to help him sing a mournful song for Lycidas. He describes the idyllic pastoral setting and the sorrow of the shepherds who have lost their companion. The speaker then expresses his grief over the untimely death of Lycidas, noting how death has taken him before he could fully realize his poetic potential.
As the poem progresses, the speaker transitions into a criticism of the corrupt state of the church and the clergy of the time. He addresses the clergy directly, blaming them for their negligence and worldly pursuits, which he believes have contributed to Lycidas’s untimely death. This portion of the poem reflects Milton’s discontent with the state of the Church of England and his longing for reform.
Toward the end of the poem, the tone shifts as the speaker envisions Lycidas, transformed into a water deity, and he becomes more optimistic about the afterlife and the possibility of salvation. The poem concludes with a hopeful and comforting image of Lycidas’s spirit joining the company of other deceased poets and shepherds in a celestial realm.
In summary, “Lycidas” by John Milton is a pastoral elegy that mourns the death of the poet’s friend, Edward King, while also addressing broader themes of loss, mortality, and the state of the Church. The poem is rich in imagery and uses the convention of pastoral poetry to create a complex and emotionally charged exploration of grief and transcendence.
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