But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.' O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd 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 ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain? And question'd every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each beaked promontory: They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotadés their answer brings, Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 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: Creep and intrude and climb into the fold! Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; But that two-handed engine at the door Return, Alphéus, the dread voice is past Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies. ; Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise; Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, Where the great Vision of the guarded mount 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; 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 walk'd the waves; With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay : And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay : At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. J. Milton LXVII ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY MORTALITY, behold and fear What a change of flesh is here! Think how many royal bones Here they lie, had realms and lands, Here the bones of birth have cried Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings: Here's a world of pomp and state Buried in dust, once dead by fate. LXVIII F. Beaumont THE LAST CONQUEROR VICTORIOUS men of earth, no more VIC Proclaim how wide your empires are ; Though you bind-in every shore And your triumphs reach as far As night or day, Yet you, proud monarchs, must obey And mingle with forgotten ashes, when Death calls ye to the crowd of common men. Devouring Famine, Plague, and War, Nor to these alone confined, He hath at will More quaint and subtle ways to kill; |