503

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,

Nor in the glistering foil

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

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 honored flood,

least

That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs! What recks it them? what need they? they are sped;

And

when they list, their lean and flashy songs

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 ;

straw;

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;

Daily devours apace, and nothing said;

swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged winds That blows from off each beaked 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,

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,

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,

Enow 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;

jet,

The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired wood

bine,

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive

head,

And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat 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 towards 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 th' oaks and rills,

While the still morn went out with sandals gray;

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.

JOHN MILTON.

ELEGY ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON.

O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The muckle devil wi' a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
O'er hurcheon hides,

And like stock-fish come o'er his studdie
Wi' thy auld sides!

He's gane! he's gane! he's frae us torn,
The ae best fellow e'er was born!
Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn
By wood and wild,
Where, haply, Pity strays forlorn,
Frae man exiled.

Ye hills, near neebors o' the starns,
That proudly cock your cresting cairns!
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns,
Where Echo slumbers!
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns,
My wailing numbers!

Mourn,ilka grove the cushat kens!
Ye haz'lly shaws and briery dens!
Ye burnies, wimplin down your glens,
Wi' todlin' din,

Or foaming strang, wi' hasty stens,
Frae linn to linn.

Mourn, little harebells owre the lea;
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see;
Ye woodbines hanging bonnilie,
In scented bowers;
Ye roses on your thorny tree,
The first o' flowers!

At dawn, when every grassy blade
Droops with a diamond at his head,
At ev'n, when beans their fragrance shed
I' th' rustling gale,
Ye maukins, whiddin' through the glade,
Come, join my wail!

Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood;
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud;
Ye curlews calling through a clud;
Ye whistling plover;
And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood;
He's gane for ever!