by John Milton
Broke the fair musick that all creatures made
To thir great Lord, whose love thir motion sway’d
In perfect Diapason,3 whilst they stood
In first obedience, and thir state of good.
25
O may we soon again renew that Song,
And keep in tune with Heav’n, till God e’re long
To his celestial consort4 us unite
To live with him, and sing in endles morn of light.
(1637)
* * *
1 The nine celestial sirens assigned to the nine spheres of the universe (see Nativity Ode, n. 26) were identified with the Muses, here specifying Polyhymnia, the muse of sacred song, and Erato, the muse of lyric poetry. Milton fuses the harmonious music of the spheres and the song of the multitude with palms in their hands before the throne of God (Rev. vii. 9).
2 harmony.
3 consonance of the entire compass of tones in an octave, thus referring to the harmonious song of “all creatures” regardless of relative position in the chain of being.
4 both fellowship and company of music makers (“concert”). There is also a hint of wordplay on the meaning “marital association” (“consortium”) with Christ the Bridegroom.
Lycidas1
In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Freind,2 unfortunatly drown’d 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 com to pluck your berries harsh and crude,3
And with forc’t fingers rude
5
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear
Compells me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
10
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he well knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rime.
He must not flote upon his watry bear
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind
Without the meed of som melodious tear.
15
Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well4
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may som gentle muse
20
With lucky5 words favour my destin’d urn,
And as he passes, turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
25
Together both ere the high Lawns appear’d
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afeild, and both together heard
What time the gray fly winds her sultry6 horn,
Batning7 our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
30
Oft till the star8 that rose in Evning bright
Toward Heav’ns descent had sloapt his westring wheel.
Mean while the rurall ditties were not mute,
Temper’d to th’ oaten flute:
Rough Satyrs danc’t, and Fauns with clov’n heel
35
From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old Damœtas9 lov’d to hear our song.
But O the heavy change now thou art gone,
Now thou art gon, and never must return!
Thee shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves
40
With wild Thyme, and the gadding vine o’regrown,
And all thir echoes mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green
Shall now no more be seen,
Fanning thir joyous leavs to thy soft layes.
45
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowrs that thir gay wardrope wear,
When first the white thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds ear.
50
Where were ye nymphs when the remorseless deep
Clos’d o’re the head of your lov’d Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old bards the famous Drüids lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona10 high,
55
Nor yet where Deva11 spreds her wisard stream:
Ay me, I fondly dream!
Had ye bin there, for what could that have don?
What could the Muse12 her self that Orpheus bore,
The Muse her self for her inchanting son
60
Whom universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar
His goary visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shoar.
Alas! What boots it13 with incessant care
65
To tend the homely slighted shepherds trade
And strictly meditate the thankless muse?
Were it not better don as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra’s hair?
70
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes;
But the fair guerdon14 when we hope to find
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
75
Comes the blind Fury15 with th’ abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,
Phœbus repli’d, and touch’t my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil16
80
Set off to th’ world, nor in broad rumor lies,
But lives and spreds aloft by those pure eyes
And perfet witness of all-judging Jove
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heav’n expect thy meed.
85
O Fountain Arethuse17 and thou honour’d flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown’d with vocall reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat18 proceeds
And listens to the Herald of the Sea19
90
That came in Neptunes plea,
He askt the waves, and askt the fellon 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,
95
They knew not of his story,
And sage Hippotades20 thir answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon straid,
The air was calm, and on the levell brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters21 plaid.
100
It was that fatall and perfidious bark
Built in th’ eclipse, and rigg’d with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Next Camus,22 reverend Sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
105
Inwraught with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flowr23 inscrib’d with woe.
Ah! who hath reft, quoth he, my dearest pledge?
Last came and last did goe
The Pilot of the Galilean lake,24
110
Two massy keys he bore of mettalls twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain),
He shook his mitr’d locks and stern bespake,
Anow of such as for thir bellies sake
115
Creep and intrude, and clime into the fold?
Of other care they little reckning make
Then how to scramble at the shearers feast
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarse themselves know how to hold
120
A sheephook, or have learn’t ought els the least
That to the faithfull herdsmans art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;25
And when they list, thir lean and flashy songs
Grate on thir scrannel26 pipes of wretched straw,
125
The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spred:
Besides what the grim wolf27 with privy paw
Dayly devours apace, and little sed,
130
But that two-handed engine28 at the dore
Stands ready to smite once and smite no more.
Return Alphéus, the dred voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; return Sicilian Muse,29
And call the vales and bid them hither cast
135
Thir bells, and flowrets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low where the mild whispers use,
Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star30 sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamel’d eyes
140
That on the green terf suck the honied showrs
And purple all the ground with vernal flowrs.
Bring the rathe31 primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crowtoe and pale Gessamine,
The white pink, and the pansie freakt32 with jet,
145
The glowing violet,
The musk rose and the well-attir’d woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad imbroidrie wears:
Bid Amaranthus33 all his beauties shed
150
And daffadillies fill thir cups with tears
To strew the laureat herse where Lycid’ lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise
Ay me! whilst thee the shoars and sounding seas
155
Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurl’d,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous34 world;
Or whether thou to our moist vows deni’d
160
Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus35 old
Where the great vision of the guarded mount36
Looks toward Namancos, and Bayona’s hold;
Look homeward Angel now and melt with ruth
And O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth.37
165
Weep no more, wofull shepherds weep no more,38
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar,
So sinks the day star39 in the Ocean bed
And yet anon repairs his drooping head
170
And tricks his beams, and with newspangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low but mounted high
Through the dear might of him40 that walkt the waves:
Where other groves and other streams along
175
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves
And hears the unexpressive41 nuptiall song
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above
In solemn troops, and sweet societies
180
That sing, and singing in thir glory move
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.42
Now Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shoar
In thy large recompence, and shalt be good
185
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 toucht the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Dorick43 lay:
190
And now the Sun had stretcht out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay;
At last he rose and twitcht his mantle blew:
To morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.
(Nov. 1637)
* * *
1 Built on verse paragraphs of varying lengths, the poem is irregularly rhymed (including ten unrhymed lines) with key lines linking groups of rhymes, and ends in ottava rima. The two so-called digressions (ll. 64-84 and 103-31), which French sees as the core of the poem (SP, L, 1953, 485-90), are preceded by passages concerned with death by water and followed by a passage in which water becomes the source of new life. The vernal flowers which strew Lycidas’ hearse contrast with the dying vegetation in ll. 37-49, recalling the rebirth of Orpheus and such vegetation gods. As Wayne Shumaker shows (PMLA, LXVI, 1951, 485–94), the apotheosis (ll. 165–85), which presents the poet-priest-shepherd as still living, gives hope and courage and reconciliation to destiny and the physical world.
2 Edward King, who attended Christ’s College, Cambridge, was drowned on Aug. 10, 1637, when his ship capsized (despite good weather, according to Milton, though not according to King’s brother Henry). He had planned to enter the clergy and had attempted some occasional verse; his pastoral name is that used by Virgil for a shepherd-poet (Ec. ix). The poem appears last in a collection of less distinguished Latin, Greek, and English obsequies, Justa Edovardo King naufrago (1638).
3 unripe.
4 the Muses; see El. 4, n. 10.
5 propitious or, George O. Marshall suggests (Explicator, XVII, 1959, item 66), “having an unstudied felicity.”
6 warm from midday heat.
7 feeding.
8 Hesperus.
9 apparently a tutor at Cambridge.
10 the isle of Anglesey.
11 the river Dee.
12 Calliope; Orpheus was torn to pieces by drunken followers of Bacchus, and his head floated down the Hebrus to the island of Lesbos.
13 of what advantage is it?
14 reward.
15 Atropos, one of the Fates.
16 a thin leaf of metal used as a background to enhance a gem.
17 See Arcades, n. 10.
18 pastoral song.
19 Triton, who pleads the innocence of the sea in causing King’s death.
20 god of the winds.
21 water-nymphs.
22 god of the river Cam, representing Cambridge University.
23 the hyacinth, named for the youth accidentally killed by Apollo; the inscription was the Greek word for “alas.”
24 St. Peter, wearing a bishop’s miter and bearing the keys of heaven.
25 What does it matter to them? What do they need? They have fared well.
26 feeble.
27 perhaps the Anglican church, headed by Archbishop Laud.
28 Whatever the specific reference, the meaning seems clear: the corrupted clergy will be punished finally and absolutely. 1 Sam. xxvi. 8: “let me smite him … with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time.” Probably intended, however, is the avenging sword of the Archangel Michael (“the great vision of the guarded mount,” l. 161); see PL VI, 249-53, 278.
Compare the passage with John x. 1-13, from which it is drawn, and Ezek. xxxiv.
29 that of Theocritus and others
who wrote pastorals.
30 the blackening Dog Star (at its height when summer heat scorches vegetation).
31 early.
32 spotted.
33 a flower supposedly yielding immortality.
34 full of sea monsters.
35 a mythical Cornish giant.
36 Off Land’s End in Cornwall, a large rock, traditionally guarded by the archangel Michael, points toward Namancos, a mountain range, and Bayona, a city, in Spain.
37 as in the legend they carried Arion, who was born on Lesbos; compare ll. 57-63. They also rescued the dead body of Melicartes, who became the sea-god Palaemon. The dolphin is a symbol of Christ.
38 Lines 165-81 are perhaps said by Michael, the redeeming voice, as William G. Madsen argues in SEL, III (1963), 1-7.
39 the sun.
40 Christ.
41 inexpressible.
42 Rev. xxi. 4: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.”
43 pastoral.
Ad Patrem
Nunc mea Pierios1 cupiam per pectora fontes
Irriguas torquere vias, totumque per ora
Volvere laxatum gemino de vertice rivum;
Ut tenues oblita sonos audacibus alis
5
Surgat in officium venerandi Musa parentis.
Hoc utcunque tibi gratum, pater optime, carmen
Exiguum meditatur opus, nec novimus ipsi
Aptiùs à nobis quæ possint munera donis
Respondere tuis, quamvis nec maxima possint
10
Respondere tuis, nedum ut par gratia donis
Esse queat, vacuis quæ redditur arida verbis.
Sed tamen hæc mostros ostendit pagina census,
Et quod habemus opum chartâ numeravimus istâ,
Quæ mihi sunt nullæ, nisi quas dedit aurea Clio2
15
Quas mihi semoto somni peperere sub antro,
Et nemoris laureta sacri Parnassides umbræ.
