His rocks in nakedness arise; His desolations mock the skies. An Alpine monument may dwell The mountain-thy pall and thy prison-may keep thee; LESSON CLVIII. Lycidas.-MILTON. In this monody, the author bewails a learned friend, who, on his passage from Chester to Ireland, was drowned in the Irish seas, 1637.] YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude: Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, With lucky words favor my destined urn; 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 eye-lids of the Morn, Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Tempered to the oaten flute; Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel But, O the heavy change! now thou art gone! The willows, and the hazel copses green, Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, gay 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, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: Had ye been there-for what could that have done? When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, Alas! what boots it with incessant care *Pren, time. Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise To scorn delights and live laborious days; Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies: Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed." 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 beaked prom'ontory: They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotădes their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed; Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where the wild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks; Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honied showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. *Pron. gue as in guess. † Pron. are 'thuso Bring the rǎth primrose that forsaken dies, The musk-rose, and the well attired woodbine, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise; Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide, Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and, with new-spangled ore, So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of him that walked the waves; Where other groves and other streams along, With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, LESSON CLIX. A Thunder-storm, among the Highlands of Scotland.-WILSON. AN enormous thunder-cloud had lain all day over BenNevis, shrouding its summit in thick darkness, blackening its sides and base, wherever they were beheld from the surrounding country, with masses of deep shadow, and especially flinging down a weight of gloom upon that magnificent glen that bears the same name with the mountain, till now the afternoon was like twilight, and the voice of all the streams was distinct in the breathlessness of the vast solitary hollow. The inhabitants of all the straths, vales, glens, and dells, round and about the monarch of Scottish mountains, had, during each successive hour, been expecting the roar of thunder and the deluge of rain; but the huge conglomeration of lowering clouds would not rend asunder, although it was certain that a calm, blue sky could not be restored till all that dreadful assemblage had melted away into torrents, or been driven off by a strong wind from the sea. All the cattle on the hills, and in the hollows, stood still or lay down in their fear-the wild deer sought in herds the shelter of the pine-covered cliffs-the raven hushed his hoarse croak in some grim cavern, and the eagle left the dreadful silence of the upper heavens. Now and then the shepherds looked from their huts, while the shadow of the thunder-clouds deepened the hues of their plaids and tartans; and at every creaking of the heavy branches of the pines, or wide-armed oaks, in the solitude of their inaccessible birth-place, the hearts of the lonely dwellers quaked, and they lifted up their eyes to see the first wide flash-the disparting of the masses of darkness-and paused to hear the long, loud rattle of heaven's artillery, shaking the foundations of the everlasting mountains. But all was yet silent. |