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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 hurl'd,
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 t
Looks towards 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 walk'd the waves;
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,

A Cornish giant.

+ Mount St. Michael; not far from the Land's End in Cornwall, whence at low water it is accessible. The guarded mount, says Mr. Warton, is simply the fortified mount; and the great vision is the famous apparition of St. Michael, who is said to have appeared on the top of the mount, and to have directed a church to be built there.

1 Or Numantia; a town of Old Castile, once highly celebrated in the Spanish history.

And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,

In the bless'd 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 for ever 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 touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropp'd into the western bay:
At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

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DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL, RA ENGRAVED BY E.I PORTBURY, PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, LONDON

JULY 1, 1827

L'ALLEGRO.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks and sights unholy!

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low brow'd rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess, fair and free,
In Heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne,
And by Men, heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some sages sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a Maying;
There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,

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