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Mortals that would follow me, Love Virtue, fhe alone is free, She can teach you how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would ftoop to her.

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XVII. LY CI

XVII.

LYCI DA

S.

In this monody the author bewails a learned friend *, unfortunately drown'd in his paffage from Chester on the Irish feas, 1637, and by occafion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth.

Y

ET once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never fere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and fad occafion dear,
Compels me to disturb your feafon due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his
peer:
Who would not fing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to fing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not flote upon his watry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of fome melodious tear.

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Begin then, Sifters of the facred well,

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That from beneath the feat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and fomewhat loudly sweep the string.

* Mr. Edward King, fon of Sir John King Secretary for Ireland, a fellow-collegian and intimate friend of our author.

Hence

Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,

So may fome gentle Muse

With lucky words favor my deftin'd urn,
And as he paffes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my fable shroud.
For we were nurft upon the self-fame hill,
Fed the fame flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd
Under the opening eye- lids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her fultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night
Oft till the ftar that rofe, at evening, bright,

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Tow'ard Heav'n's defcent had flop'd his weftering wheel.

Mean while the rural ditties were not mute,

Temper'd to the oaten flute,

Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad found would not be absent long,
And old Damætas lov'd to hear our fong.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,

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Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and defert caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 40
And all their echoes mourn.

The willows, and the hazel copfes green,

Shall now no more be seen,

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy foft lays.

As killing as the canker to the rofe,

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Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,

Or

gay

Or froft to flowers, that their wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy lofs to fhepherds' ear.

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Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Clos'd 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 fhaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wisard stream:
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 inchanting fon,
Whom univerfal nature did lament,

When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His goary vifage down the stream was fent,
Down the fwift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with inceffant care
To tend the homely flighted fhepherd's trade,

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And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?

Were it not better done, as others use,

To sport with Amaryllis in the fhade,

Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spi’rit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To fcorn 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,
And flits the thin-fpun life. But not the praise,
Phoebus reply'd, and touch'd my trembling ears;
VOL. III.

M

༡༠

75

Fame

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal foil,
Nor in the glittering foil

Set off to th' world, nor in broad rumor lies,
But lives and fpreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces laftly on each deed,

Of fo much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed.

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O fountain Arethufe, and thou honor'd flood, 85 Smooth-fliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds, That strain I heard was of a higher mood: But now my oat proceeds,

And liftens to the herald of the fea

That came in Neptune's plea;

He afk'd the waves, and afk'd the fellon winds,
What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain ?
And question'd every gust of rugged winds
That blows from off each beaked promontory;
They knew not of his story,

And fage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon ftray'd,
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her fifters play'd.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark

Built in th' eclipfe, and rigg'd with curfes dark,
That funk fo low that facred head of thine.

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Next Camus, reverend fire, went footing flow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet fedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that fanguin flower infcrib'd with woe. Ah! who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? Laft came, and lạft did go,

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