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LYCIDAS.

And strictly meditate the thankless muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(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 the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

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Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge, Like to that sanguine flower, inscribed with woe. Ah! who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? Last came, and last did go,

The pilot of the Galilean Lake;

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain);
He shook his mitered locks, and stern bespake:
How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies' sake

Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
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:

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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 enameled eyes,

LYCIDAS.

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 laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Ah 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 toward 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 no more!

For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

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,

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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,

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.

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; 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.

JOHN MILTON.

Henry Kirke White.

NHAPPY White! when life was in its spring,

UN

And thy young Muse just waved her joyous wing,

The spoiler came, and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep forever there.
O what a noble heart was there undone,
When Science' self destroyed her favorite son!
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit ;
She sowed the seeds, but Death has reaped the fruit.
'T was thine own genius gave the fatal blow,
And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low.
So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,
And winged the shaft that quivers at his heart.

HYMN TO ADVERSITY.

Keen were his pangs; but keener far to feel
He nursed the pinion that impelled the steel,
While the same plumage that had warmed his nest,
Drank the last life-drop from his bleeding breast!
LORD BYRON.

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Hymn to Adversity.

AUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and torturing hour

The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,

The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,

And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore;

What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,

And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they disperse, and with them go

The summer friend, the flattering foe;

By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

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