* “The next, with dirges * due, in sad array, 115 Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay * Dirge, a funeral service. Array, procession. 120 THE EPITAPH.* Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished), 125 No further seek his merits * to disclose, (There they alike in trembling hope repose),- 5 10 LOVE OF COUNTRY.-Scott. BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, "This is my own, my native land!" * From wandering on a foreign strand! 15 To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Foreign strand, countries other than one's own native land. Pelf, riches. Concentred, &c., thinking of no one but himself, being selfish. Renown, respect, honour, fame. LYCIDAS.*-John Milton. JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) among English poets ranks next to Shakspeare. His youth was spent in long and very earnest study; and to what he thus acquired, he added still more by travelling in foreign countries. He was Latin Secretary to Oliver Cromwell, and for the last twenty-two years of his life was totally blind. Chief poems: L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas, Samson Agonistes; Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, in which he has discarded rhyme, and given us the most splendid specimen of blank verse in the language. * YET once more, O ye laurels,* and once more, * * With lucky words * favour my destined urn; And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.* For we were nursed upon the selfsame hill, night, * Oft till the star, that rose at evening bright, Westering, going to Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering* wards the west. wheel. 5 10 15 20 25 30 * Lycidas: in this poem Milton bewails a learned friend, Edward King, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester, on the Irish Sea, 1637. The name Lycidas was adopted from the Greek poet Theocritus. * [heel Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone, The willows, and the hazel copses green, Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 45 As killing as the canker * to the rose, 50 Canker, something away. Or taint-worm to the weanling* herds that graze, 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, 55 Nor yet where Deva * spreads her wizard stream: Had ye been there for what could that have done? 60 Whom universal nature did lament, When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, 70 Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise To scorn delights and live laborious days; who watched over different places. Bards, the Druid Mona, the Isle of Deva, the river Dee, to have been the haunt of magicians. Orpheus was the son of Calliope, the Muse of Epic poetry. Hebrus (the Maritza), a river in the south of Turkey. Guerdon, reward. - 75 Comes the blind Fury* with the abhorred shears, Fury, Atropos, one And slits the thin - spun life. of the three Fates. "But not the praise," Phoebus* replied, and touch'd my trembling ears: "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, * 80 Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: That strain I heard was of a higher mood: And listens to the herald of the sea He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon * winds, And question'd every gust of rugged wings And sage Hippotades* their answer brings, * Last came, and last did go. The pilot * of the Galilean lake; 66 swain, Enow* of such, as for their bellies' sake 95 100 105 110 115 Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold 120 A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught* else the Aught, anything. least That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs! And, when they list, their lean and flashy * songs Grate on their scrannel* pipes of wretched straw; 125 The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swollen with wind and the rank * mist they Rot inwardly, and foul contagion * spread : Alpheus, a stream in Arethusa. That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, be connected with And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 135 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 * Wanton, wandering at pleasure. Sparely, rarely, sel- looks; Throw hither all your quaint * enamell'd * eyes, 140 That on the green turf suck the honey'd 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 freak'd* with jet, Freaked, spotted or 145 The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, * ing, fanciful. streaked. With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, Wan, pale. * 150 And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, Let our frail* thoughts dally * with false surmise; Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide, smooth |