The Complete Poetry of John Milton (39 page)
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Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
95
They knew not of his story,
And sage
Hippotades
20
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 sisters
21
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 flowr
23
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,
How well could I have spar’d for thee, young swain,
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 scrannel
26
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 wolf
27
with privy paw
Dayly devours apace, and little sed,
130
But that two-handed engine
28
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 star
30
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 rathe
31
primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crowtoe and pale Gessamine,
The white pink, and the pansie freakt
32
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
Amaranthus
33
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 monstrous
34
world;
Or whether thou to our moist vows deni’d
160
Sleep’st by the fable of
Bellerus
35
old
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
36
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 star
39
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 him
40
that walkt the waves:
Where other groves and other streams along
175
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves
And hears the unexpressive
41
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
Dorick
43
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.