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 selfsame 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 afield, 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,
Towards 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 Damætas 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 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,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with incessant 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 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 wings,
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.

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,

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 enameled 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 daffadillies 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;
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.

Weep no more, woful 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,
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.

SELECTIONS FROM "IN MEMORIAM." [ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM, OB. 1833] GRIEF UNSPEAKABLE.

I SOMETIMES hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies ;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold; But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.

DEAD, IN A FOREIGN LAND. FAIR ship, that from the Italian shore Sailest the placid ocean-plains

With my lost Arthur's loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er!

So draw him home to those that mourn
In vain; a favorable speed
Ruffle thy mirrored mast, and lead
Through prosperous floods his holy urn!

All night no ruder air perplex

Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright As our pure love, through early light Shall glimmer on the dewy decks!

Sphere all your lights around, above;

Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow ; Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, My friend, the brother of my love;

My Arthur, whom I shall not see Till all my widowed race be run ; Dear as the mother to the son, More than my brothers are to me!

Who but Fergus O'Farrell, the fiery and gay, The darling and pride of the Flower of Finae?

A second Eve, but by no crime accursed; As beauteous, not as brittle, as the first. Had she been first, still Paradise had been,

ELEGY ON THE COUNTESS OF ABINGDON.

No single virtue we could most commend,
Whether the wife, the mother, or the friend;
For she was all, in that supreme degree,
That, as no one prevailed, so all was she.
The several parts lay hidden in the piece;
The occasion but exerted that, or this.

A wife as tender, and as true withal,
As the first woman was before her fall:
Made for the man, of whom she was a part;
Made to attract his eyes, and keep his heart.

So she not only had preserved from ill
Her sex and ours, but lived their pattern still.
Love and obedience to her lord she bore;
She much obeyed him, but she loved him more :
Not awed to duty by superior sway,
But taught by his indulgence to obey.
Thus we love God, as author of our good.

Yet unemployed no minute slipped away; Moments were precious in so short a stay. The haste of Heaven to have her was so great That some were single acts, though each complete; But every act stood ready to repeat.

Her fellow-saints with busy care will look For her blest name in fate's eternal book; And, pleased to be outdone, with joy will see Numberless virtues, endless charity: But more will wonder at so short an age, To find a blank beyond the thirtieth page; And with a pious fear begin to doubt The piece imperfect, and the rest torn out. But 't was her Saviour's time; and could there be A copy near the original, 't was she.

As precious gums are not for lasting fire, They but perfume the temple, and expire; So was she soon exhaled, and vanished hence, -A short sweet odor, of a vast expense. She vanished, we can scarcely say she died; For but a now did heaven and earth divide: She passed serenely with a single breath ; This moment perfect health, the next was death: One sigh did her eternal bliss assure; So little penance needs, when souls are almost pure. As gentle dreams our waking thoughts pursue; Or, one dream passed, we slide into a new; So close they follow, such wild order keep, We think ourselves awake, and are asleep : So softly death succeeded life in her : She did but dream of heaven, and she was there. No pains she suffered, nor expired with noise; Her soul was whispered out with God's still voice; As an old friend is beckoned to a feast, And treated like a long-familiar guest. He took her as he found, but found her so, As one in hourly readiness to go: E'en on that day, in all her trim prepared; As early notice she from heaven had heard, And some descending courier from above Had given her timely warning to remove; Or counseled her to dress the nuptial room, For on that night the bridegroom was to come. He kept his hour, and found her where she lay Clothed all in white, the livery of the day.

JOHN DRYDEN.