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.
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 well,
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
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to the oaten flute;
Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel From the glad song would not be absent long, And old Damætas loved to hear our song.
But oh, the heavy change, now thou art goneNow thou art gone, and never must return! Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'er
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 shepherd's 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 on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva 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,
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold
(That last infirmity of noble minds)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind fury with the abhorred 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
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 winds
That blows from off each beaked promontory;
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed;
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in th' eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge,
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 herdsman'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 pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swollen 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, 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 mild 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 honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears.
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies,
For so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away where'er thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world ;
Or whether thou to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward angel now, and melt with ruth!
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth!
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep
more!
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
In Remembrance of the Hon. Edward
Ernest billiers.
A GRACE though melancholy, manly too,
Moulded his being; pensive, grave, serene,
O'er his habitual bearing and his mien
Unceasing pain, by patience tempered, threw
A shade of sweet austerity. But seen
In happier hours and by the friendly few,
That curtain of the spirit was withdrawn,
And fancy light and playful as a fawn,
And reason imped with inquisition keen,
no Knowledge long sought with ardor ever new,
And wit love-kindled, showed in colors true
What genial joys with sufferings can consist.
Then did all sternness melt as melts a mist
Touched by the brightness of the golden dawn,
Aërial heights disclosing, valleys green,
And sunlights thrown the woodland tufts between,
And flowers and spangles of the dewy lawn.
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky;
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,
In solemn troops and sweet societies,
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears forever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
And even the stranger, though he saw not these,
Saw what would not be willingly passed by.
In his deportment, even when cold and shy,
Was seen a clear collectedness and ease,
A simple grace and gentle dignity,
That failed not at the first accost to please;
And as reserve relented by degrees,
So winning was his aspect and address,
His smile so rich in sad felicities,
Accordant to a voice which charmed no less,
That who but saw him once remembered long,
And some in whom such images are strong
Have hoarded the impression in their heart,
Thus sang the uncouth swain to th' oaks and Fancy's fond dreams and memory's joys among, rills, Like some loved relic of romantic song,
While the still morn went out with sandals Or cherished masterpiece of ancient art.
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay;
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.
His life was private; safely led, aloof
From the loud world,-which yet he understood
Largely and wisely, as no worldling could.
For he by privilege of his nature proof
Against false glitter, from beneath the roof
Of privacy, as from a cave, surveyed
With steadfast eye its flickering light and shade,
ELEGY ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON.
And gently judged for evil and for good.
But whilst he mixed not for his own behoof
In public strife, his spirit glowed with zeal,
Not shorn of action, for the public weal —
For truth and justice as its warp and woof,
For freedom as its signature and seal.
His life thus sacred from the world, discharged
From vain ambition and inordinate care,
In virtue exercised, by reverence rare
Lifted, and by humility enlarged,
Became a temple and a place of prayer.
In latter years he walked not singly there;
For one was with him, ready at all hours
His griefs, his joys, his inmost thoughts to share,
Who buoyantly his burthens helped to bear,
And decked his altars daily with fresh flowers.
But farther may we pass not; for the ground
Is holier than the muse herself may tread;
Nor would I it should echo to a sound
Less solemn than the service for the dead.
Mine is inferior matter-my own loss-
The loss of dear delights for ever fled,
Of reason's converse by affection fed,
Of wisdom, counsel, solace, that across
Life's dreariest tracts a tender radiance shed.
Friend of my youth! though younger, yet my guide,
How much by thy unerring insight clear
I shaped my way of life for many a year,
What thoughtful friendship on thy death-bed died!
Friend of my youth! whilst thou wast by my side,
Autumnal days still breathed a vernal breath;
How like a charm thy life to me supplied
All waste and injury of time and tide,
How like a disenchantment was thy death!
Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson.
O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody! The muckle devil wi' a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
O'er hurcheon hides,
And like stockfish come o'er his studdie Wi' thy auld sides!
He's gane! he's gane! he's frae us torn,
The ae best fellow e'er was born!
Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn
By wood and wild,
Where, haply, pity strays forlorn,
Frae man exiled.
Ye hills, near neebors o' the starns,
That proudly cock your cresting cairns!
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns,
Where echo slumbers!
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns,
My wailing numbers!
Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens!
Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens!
Ye burnies, wimplin down your glens,
Wi' todlin' din,
Or foaming strang, wi' hasty stens,
Frae linn to linn.
Mourn, little harebells owre the lea;
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see;
Ye woodbines hanging bonnilie,
In scented bowers;
Ye roses on your thorny tree,
The first o' flowers.
At dawn, when every grassy blade
Droops with a diamond at his head,
At even, when beans their fragrance shed
I' th' rustling gale,
Ye maukins, whiddin' through the glade,
Come, join my wail!
Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood;
Ye grouse that crap the heather-bud;
Ye curlews calling through a clud;
Ye whistling plover;
And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood;
He's gane for ever!
Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals;
Ye fisher herons, watching eels;
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels
Circling the lake;
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels,
Rair for his sake!
Mourn, clam'ring craiks, at close o' day, 'Mang fields o' flowering clover gay!
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