But you always give me a laugh, still. Not that I agree at all that you're a rubbish critic.
Oh, dear. I just espied Lycidas lurking on deck (Penelope, that's a hoary baseball term. Or did we steal it from cricket?) I should have said "Lycidas" on deck so you'd know it's Milton's poem we have to look forward to or dread. I think it's boffo, though the Milton prof may have brainwashed me. He made us memorize and recite the first 14 lines (and that was graduate school). Now I'm wondering what to do. This is over 200 lines of Milton's allusion-laden verse. What are the chances that anyone has time and energy enough to consume the whole piece? I will therefore give you a reduced, low-calorie version. You are free to access the full dish at
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/23286-John-Milton-Lycidas
This is an elegy for Edward king, a classmate of Milton's. There's no indication that they were very close. Milton just uses the occasion to make his own pastoral elegy in imitation of the classics and to attack the clergy.
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 favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!
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But, oh! 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 shepherd's ear.
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Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,
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 Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
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 rumour 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.
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Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman'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, swoln 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."
**************************
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 toward Namancos and Bayona's hold.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
**********************
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 grey:
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:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
Notes
'This poem was made upon the unfortunate and untimely death of Mr. Edward King, son of Sir John King Secretary for Ireland, a fellow collegian and intimate friend of our author, who as he was going to visit his relations in Ireland, was drown'd on the 10th of August 1637, and in the 25th year of his age. The year following 1638 a small volume of poems Greek, Latin, and English, was printed at Cambridge in honor of his memory. ... The last poem in the collection was this of Milton, which by his own Manuscript appears to have been written in November 1637, when he was almost 29 years old: and these words in the printed titles of this poem, "and by occasion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth," are not in the Manuscript. This poem is with great judgment made of the pastoral kind, as both Mr. King and Milton had been design'd for holy orders and the pastoral care, which gives a peculiar propriety to several passages in it: and in composing it the poet had an eye particularly to Virgil's 10th Eclogue lamenting the unhappy loves of Gallus, and to Spenser's pastoral poems upon the death of the Muses favourite, Sir Philip Sidney. The reader cannot but observe, that there are more antiquated and obsolete words in this than in any other of Milton's poems; which I conceive to be owing partly to his judgment, for he might think them more rustic, and better adapted to the nature of pastoral poetry; and partly to his imitating of Spenser, for as Spenser's stile is most antiquated, where he imitates Chaucer most, in his Shepherds Calendar, so Milton's imitations of Spenser might have the same effect upon the language of this poem. It is called a "monody," from a Greek word signifying a mournful or funeral song sung by a single person: and we have lately had two admirable poems publish'd under this title, one occasion'd by the death of Mr. Pope by a very ingenious poet of Cambridge, and the other to the memory of his deceas'd lady by a gentleman, whose excellent poetry is the least of his many excellencies.
