EGLOGUE IX. MERIS. LYCIDAS. MORIS. LYCIDAS. WHITHER, O Moris, do thy feet [bear] thee? MERIS. O Lycidas, we have reached the day alive, (Which ne'er we feared,) should tell us, "These are mine; Move off, old tenants." Now o'erborne, in woe, Since chance is shifting all things, we to him (Bad luck with them!) are carrying these kids. LYCIDAS. I sooth had surely heard, that where the hills MERIS. Hadst heard? Ay, it has been a rumour; but But save 10 Line 19. Or, if this version seems a little too free, it may be thus varied : The quarrel, neither would this Mœris thine, LYCIDAS. Alas! occurs to any guilt so deep? Alas! were consolations thine from us, Well nigh along with thee, Menalcas, reft? Who could the nymphets sing? Who strew the ground With emerald shade? Or [who could sing] the lays, Wouldst take thee:-" Tityrus, till I return, MERIS. Nay rather those which, not yet finished off, The swans shall waft aloft unto the stars." 40 Had me forewarned by any means to quash Line 41. Shakspeare thus alludes to the warbling of the swan : "Let music sound while he doth make his choice; Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, LYCIDAS. So may thy swarms escape Cyrnean yews! Begin, if aught Thy kine swell out their teats! Thou hast. Pieria's ladies; I have verses too; Me likewise do the shepherds call a bard: For [lays] I seem to warble, neither yet To scream a goose among the tuneful swans. MERIS. "Hither come, That sooth I am about, and silently, LYCIDAS. What those, which I had heard thee when alone And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings "Thus on Mæander's flowery margin lies Garth, still more musically: Pope, Rape of the Lock, canto v. "The tuneful swans on gliding rivers float, Dispensary, canto iv. Warbling beneath the cloudless night? The air I recollect, could I retain the words. MORIS. "Why, Daphnis, on the ancient risings of the signs Hath issued forth; the star, whereby corn-fields Shall cull thy fruits." All things age sweeps away, So many songs are now forgot by me. Now very voice eke Moris flies; the wolves LYCIDAS. By pleading pretexts our enjoyments thou 70 Lane 71. This idea is beautifully expressed by Dryden : "O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down, Till with his silent sickle they are mown." And that old common Will one day end it." "The end crowns all; arbitrator, Time, Shakspeare, Troilus and Cressida, iv. 5. 73. "How oft in pleasing tasks we wear the day, While summer suns roll unperceived away!" Pope, Ep. to Mr. Jervas. A. Philips, somewhat differently from Virgil: "For many songs and tales of mirth had I To chase the loit'ring sun adowne the sky." Past. 1. 76. To this notion Dryden alludes: Hind and Panther, 551, 2: "The surly Wolf, with secret envy burst, Yet could not howl: the Hind had seen him first." Deferr'st for long. And now, all lulled for thee, Here, where the swains are stripping the thick leaves, MORIS. Cease more, O swain; and that which presseth now When he shall have arrived himself, shall sing. Line 79. Perhaps Moris was influenced by the motive which swayed Portia: Shakspeare, Merchant of Venice, iii. 2: "But 'tis to pieze the time, To eke it, and to draw it out in length." 80. So Parnell in his beautiful Night-piece on Death: "The slumb'ring breeze forgets to breathe; The lake is smooth and clear beneath." 82. Medius seems not to be used by classical writers strictly in the sense of "half;" but I know not how to make decent English of the sense "middle," without an objectionable paraphrase. 88. Or, if tædit be read with Wagner: "the journey irketh less." |