Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/369

 ELEGIES AND EPIGRAMS

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��Quin illos rapias qui pondus inutile terrae ?

Turba quidem est telis ista petenda

tuis. 20

Vestibus hunc igitur pullis, Academia,

luge,

Et niadeant lacrymis nigra feretra tuis. Funclat et ipsa modos querebunda Elegeia

tristes, Persouet et totis nsenia mcesta scholis.

��shouldst them not seize instead some hu- man clod, some useless weight of earth ? Against such rabble thy arrows might better be aimed. O Academe, grieve in mourning vestment for this good man, and bedew his dark bier with thy tears. Let com- plaining Elegy pour out her sad strains, and let a mournful dirge ring through all the schools.

��ELEGIA TERTIA

Anno cztatis 17

IN OBITUM PR^ESULIS WIXTONIENSIS

��ELEGY III ON THE DEATH OF DR. AXDREWES, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER

��The subject of this elegy. Dr. Launcelot Andrewes, died in September, 1626, at the close of the second long vacation of Milton's academic course. He was a fit subject for eulogy at the hands of young Cantabrigians, because he not only was a Cambridge man,

MCESTUS eram, et tacitus, nullo comitante,

sedebam,

Hserebantque animo tristia plura meo: Protiuus en subiit funestse cladis imago Fecit in Augliaco quani Libitina solo; Bum proceruin ingressa est splendentes

marmore turres

Dira sepulchral! Mors metuenda face, Pulsavitque auro gravidos et jaspide muros, Nee metuit satrapum sternere falce

greges. Tune memini clarique ducis, fratrisque

verendi,

Intempestivis ossa cremata rogis; 10

Et memini Heroum quos vidit ad sethera

raptos,

Flevit et amissos Belgia tota duces. At te pnecipue luxi, dignissime Prsesul, Wintoniseque olim gloria magna tuse; Delicui fletu, et tristi sic ore querebar:

" Mors fera, Tartareo diva secunda Jovi,

Nonne satis quod sylva tuas persentiat iras,

Et quod in herbosos jus tibi detur agros,

��but had at one time been Master of Pembroke Hall. The tone of the elegy affords a curious contrast to Milton's later utterances, in his anti-episcopal pamphlets, concerning this same bishop.

��SAD and silent I sat, comradeless; and many griefs clung about my soul. Then suddenly, behold, there arose before me an image of the deadly plague which Proser- pina spread on English soil, when dire Death, fearful with his sepulchral torch, entered the glorious marble towers of the great, shook the walls heavy with jasper and gold, and feared not to lay low with his scythe the host of princes. Then I thought on that illustrious duke [Duke Christian of Brunswick, a victim of the War of the Palatinate] and his worshipped brother, whose bones were consumed on an untimely pyre; and I thought on those heroes whom all Belgia saw snatched away to the skies, saw, and wept her lost lead- ers. But for you chiefly I grieved, good Bishop, once the great glory of Winches- ter. I melted in tears, and with sad lip thus complained: "Cruel Death, goddess second to Tartarean Jove, is it then not enough that the woods should feel thy wrath, and that power should be given thee over the green things of the fields ?

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