Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/102

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��POEMS WRITTEN AT HORTON

��through the pastoral conventions. It is largely this struggle on the one hand and repression on the other, which gives the poem its remarkable intensity. At the close the poet abandons himself entirely to his impulse, and the theme soars softly into a region of mystical light, where all that is most gracious in the Hellenic con- ception of Elysium and all that is most touching in the Hebraic dream of Heaven, meet in lovely unison, after which the lines,

" Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore In thy large recompense, and si i alt be good To all that wander in that perilous flood "...

��lead the mind down again by a matchless gradation to the picture of the solitary shepherd piping in the evening fields; and the poem comes to a close on the quiet pas- toral levels where it began.

Of the language of Lycidas perhaps the less said the better, for no analysis can hope to capture its secret. In its union of the soft and the thrilling, of the exquisite and the august, of music and might, it has not been surpassed, even by Milton himself. Indeed, the oftener one reads Lycidas, the more inclined one is apt to be to accept Mark Pattison's dictum, that here Milton touched the high-water mark of his poetry.

��LYCIDAS (1637)

In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637 ; and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, then in their height.

YET once more, O ye Laurels, and once

more,

Ye Myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and

crude,

And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing

year.

Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his

peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he

knew to

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well That from beneath the seat of Jove doth

spring; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the

string.

Hence with denial vain and coy excuse: So may some gentle Muse

��With lucky words favour my destined urn,

And as he passes turn, 21

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud !

For we were nursed upon the self-same

hill, Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and

rill;

Together both, ere the high lawns ap- peared

Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the grey-fly winds her sultry

horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of

night, Oft till the star that rose at evening

bright Toward heaven's descent had sloped his

westering wheel. 31

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute ; Tempered to the oaten flute Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with

cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent

long;

And old Damcetas loved to hear our song. But, oh ! the heavy change, now thou

art gone,

Now thou art gone and never must re- turn ! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert

caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine

o'ergrown, 40

And all their echoes, mourn. The willows, and the hazel copses green,

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