Not a waste or needless sound Will double all their mirth and cheer. Come, let us haste; the stars grow high, 950 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. Spir. Back, shepherds, back! Enough your play Till next sun-shine holiday. Here be, without duck or nod, Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise With the mincing Dryades On the lawns and on the leas. This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother. Noble Lord and Lady bright, I have brought ye new delight. 960 Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970 Their faith, their patience, and their truth, To triumph in victorious dance The dances ended, the SPIRIT epiloguizes. Spir. To the ocean now I fly, Of Hesperus, and his daughters three Along the crispèd shades and bowers Revels the spruce and jocund Spring; The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours There eternal Summer dwells, And west winds with musky wing About the cedarn alleys fling Nard and cassia's balmy smells. Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can shew, Sadly sits the Assyrian queen. But far above, in spangled sheen, 980 990 1000 Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced After her wandering labours long, But now my task is smoothly done : I can fly, or I can run Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, Heaven itself would stoop to her. LYCIDAS. 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, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well With lucky words favour my destined urn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud! For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, 10 20 Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute; Tempered to the oaten flute, Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damætas loved to hear our song. But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone and never must return! 30 Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, The willows, and the hazel copses green, Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless 50 deep Closed 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 yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. "Had ye been there," . . . for what could that have done? What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, 60 When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, |