With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, The willows, and the hazel copses green, Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, 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,2 the famous Druids, lie, Nor yet where Deva+ spreads her wizard stream; Had ye been there for what could that have done? When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise- To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, Gadding-connected with the verb to go-going about, wandering, straying. 2 Where your old bards, &c.--The Druid-sepulchres in the mountains of Denbighshire are referred to here. 3 Mona-the Isle of Anglesey. 4 Deva-the Dee. See note 3, p. 147. 5 Had ye been there, &c.-i. e. as Warton interprets-"I will suppose you had been there--but why should I suppose it-for what would that have availed?" 6 Meditate in the Latin sense-practise. See Virgil, "Ecl." i, 2. And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies; Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed." And listens to the herald of the sea That came in Neptune's plea; He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, They knew not of his story, And sage Hippotades3 their answer brings, Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past, That shrunk5 thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, 1 Fury-i. e. destiny. 2 Mincius-a river near Mantua, where Virgil was born. 3 4 Hippotades-olus, the son of Hippotas, the fabulous king of the winds. 5 That shrunk, &c.-i. e. "that silenced my pastoral poetry," as Mr. Warton interprets. 6 Use-i. e. frequent, inhabit. 7 Swart star" The dog-star is called the swart star, by turning the effect into the cause. Swart is swarthy, brown, &c." Warton. Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor; And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, 2 Monstrous world-the world of monsters, the sea. 3 Bellerus old-a fabulous giant of that name, renowned in Cornish mythology, or a rugged cliff, so named; some say the Land's End is intended. 4 Where the great vision of the guarded mount-i.e. the apparition of St. Michael, who gives name to St. Michael's Mount, which looks towards Spain, as intimated in the next line. 5 Namancos-this place appears, Mr. Todd informs us, in old maps, as a castle on the coast of Galicia in Spain. Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, L'ALLEGRO.1 HENCE, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy: L'Allegro-"The cheerful man." The design of this, and the following poem is to represent in a connected series of pictures, the most obvious images respectively associated with the cheerful and the melancholy temperament. The tone, spirit, and scenery all exquisitely combine in accomplishing the poet's purpose. "They are indeed," as Mr. Macaulay remarks, "not so much poems, as collections of hints, from each of which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every epithet is a text for a canto." The first ten lines in contrast with the ten that follow, afford one of the finest specimens that can be found of the expressive music of verse. In reading them aloud, the voice is at first encumbered and detained amongst artful pauses, long syllables, and clusters of harsh consonants until, at the tenth line, it is almost lost in the sombre gloom; in the next, it bursts as it were at once into life and light, and the very tone and beat of the verse are in the highest degree animating and picturesque, X Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. As he met her once a-maying, There on beds of violets blue, And fresh blown-roses washed in dew, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks, and wreathed3 Smiles, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides. On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right-hand lead with thee 1 Euphrosyne-It may be remarked that the cheerfulness illustrated in this poem is not obstreperous and vulgar merriment, but such as it befits one of the Graces to inspire. 2 As some sager, &c.—The allegory should be observed; on the one supposition, Mirth is the offspring of sensuality-on the other, the wiser conjecture, of exercise, and the breezes of the early morning, betokened by Zephyr and Aurora. 3 Wreathed-in allusion to the curling or curving of the features in the act of smiling, giving what is called an arch look. |