Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
In an odd angle of the isle and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.

Pros.

Of the king's ship

The mariners say how thou hast disposed
And all the rest o' the fleet.

Ari.

Safely in harbour

Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid :
The mariners all under hatches stowed;

Who, with a charm joined to their suffered labour,
I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet

:

Which I dispersed, they all have met again
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound sadly home for Naples,

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked
And his great person perish.

Pros.

Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is performed: but there's more work.

What is the time o' the day?

Ari.

Pros. At least two glasses.

now

Past the mid season.

The time 'twixt six and

Must by us both be spent most preciously.

Ari. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,

Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,

Which is not yet performed me.

Pros.

What is't thou canst demand?

Ari.

How now? moody?

My liberty.

Pros. Before the time be out? no more!
Ari.

Remember I have done thee worthy service;

I prithee,

Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served
Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.

Pros.

Dost thou forget

No.

From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari.

Pros. Thou dost, and think'st it much to tread the ooze

Of the salt deep,

To run upon the sharp wind of the north,

To do me business in the veins o' the earth

When it is baked with frost.

Ari.

I do not, sir.

Pros. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak
And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
Thou hast howled away twelve winters.

Ari.

I will be correspondent to command
And do my spiriting gently.

Pros.

I will discharge thee.

Ari.

Pardon, master;

Do so, and after two days

That's my noble master!

What shall I do? say what; what shall I do?

Pros. Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be

subject

To no sight but thine and mine, invisible

To every eyeball else.

Go take this shape

Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing and singing; FERDINAND following. ARIEL'S Song.

OME unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:

Courtsied when you have and kissed

The wild waves whist,

Foot it featly here and there;

And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Burthen [dispersedly]. Hark, hark!

The watch-dogs bark :

Ari. Hark, hark! I hear

Bow-wow.

Bow-wow.

The strain of strutting chanticleer

Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.

Fer. Where should this music be? i' the air or the

earth?

It sounds no more: and, sure, it waits upon
Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air: thence I have followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.
No, it begins again.

ARIEL sings.

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes :
Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell :

Burthen. Ding-dong.

Ari. Hark! now I hear them, -Ding-dong, bell.

Fer. The ditty does remember my drowned father.

This is no mortal business, nor no sound

That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.

W. Shakespeare.

CCLVIII.

LYCIDAS.

(A MONODY.)

ET 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 Lycidas1 is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer :
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 well3
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 favour my destined urn;
And, as she 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.

1 Lycidas, Edward King, Milton's college friend, who was drowned in 1637 whilst crossing from Chester to Ireland.

2 Sisters, the Muses.

3 Sacred well, the fountain of Helicon on Mount Parnassus, which the Muses were said to frequent.

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 Damotas2 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,
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 white-thorn 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 steep3

Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie,

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona1 high,

1 Oaten, see p. 13.

2 Damætas, a name used for a shepherd.

3 The steep, the mountains of Denbighshire.

Mona, Anglesea, called by the Welsh, Inis Dowil, or the Dark Island, from its dense forests.