MAY MORNING

Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.

Hail bounteous May! that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee and wish thee long.

How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbéd, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.

LYCIDAS 1

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.

Elegy on a friend, Edward King, drowned in the Irish Channel

Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
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 well1
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 favor my destined urn,
And, as he passes, turn

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 appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the gray 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. 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 Damotas 2 loved to hear our song.

But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,

1 the Muses

2 Virgil's personification of a herdsman

And all their echoes, mourn.

The willows and the hazel copses green
Shall now no more be seen

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays :-
As killing as the canker to the rose,

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear
When first the whitethorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep

Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,

1

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona 1 high,

Nor yet where Deva 2 spreads her wizard 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 enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,

When by the rout that made the hideous roar
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate3 the thankless muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,

4

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,

Or with the tangles of Neæra's 1 hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights and live laborious days;

1 Anglesea

4 names used by Horace and Virgil to personify a sweetheart

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury1 with the abhorréd shears
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil 2

Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies;
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
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned 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 asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,

“What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?”

And questioned every gust of rugged wings

That blows from off each beakéd promontory:

They knew not of his story;

5

And sage Hippotades their answer brings,

That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed;

The air was calm, and on the level brine

6

Sleek Panopé with all her sisters played.

"It was that fatal and perfidious bark

Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine."

1 Atropos, fabled to cut the thread of life

2 mirror

Sicilian and Italian waters, here referred to as synonymous with the

Next Camus,1 reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,2

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge

Like to that sanguine flower3 inscribed with woe: "Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge ! " Last came, and last did go

4

The pilot of the Galilean lake; *

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain) :

He shook his mitered 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;

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!

What recks it them? what need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel 5 pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said :

- But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

Return, Alphéus, the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast

1 the river Cam, personification of Cambridge University

2 covered with weed

3 the iris

4 Saint Peter

5 thin, poor