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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 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,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorrèd shcars,
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 the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfet 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, 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.

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.

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.

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, 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;

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,

Anow of such as, for their bellies' sake,

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

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 fleshy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
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.
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
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,
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 gessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
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,

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
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,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,

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,

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,
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,
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
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 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, 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.

POEMS WRITTEN DURING THE

CIVIL WAR AND THE

PROTECTORATE
1642-1658

WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED
TO THE CITY

C

(NOVEMBER, 1642)

APTAIN, or colonel, or knight in arms,

Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If deed of honour did thee ever please,

Guard them, and him within protect from harms.
He can requite thee, for he knows the charms
That call fame on such gentle acts as these,
And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas,
Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms.
Lift not thy spear against the Muse's bower;
The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground; and the repeated air
Of sad Electra's Poet had the power

To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.

TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY

(1644)

LADY! that in the prime of earliest youth

Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,

And with those few art eminently seen,

That labour up the Hill of Heavenly Truth,

80

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