The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (21 page)

Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.
¹⁰⁹⁶

Together both, ere the high lawns
¹⁰⁹⁷
appeared

Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,

We drove
¹⁰⁹⁸
afield, and both together heard

What time
¹⁰⁹⁹
the gray-fly
¹¹⁰⁰
winds
¹¹⁰¹
her sultry
¹¹⁰²
horn,

Batt’ning
¹¹⁰³
our flocks with the fresh dews of night,

Oft till the star
¹¹⁰⁴
that rose at ev’ning bright

Toward Heav’n’s descent had sloped his westering wheel.
¹¹⁰⁵

Meanwhile, the rural ditties were not mute,

Tempered
¹¹⁰⁶
to th’ oaten
¹¹⁰⁷
flute.

Rough satyrs
¹¹⁰⁸
danced, and fauns with clov’n heel

From the glad sound would not be absent long.

And old Damoetas
¹¹⁰⁹
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
¹¹¹⁰
vine o’er-grown,

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.
¹¹¹¹

As killing as the canker
¹¹¹²
to the rose,

Or taint-worm
¹¹¹³
to the weanling
¹¹¹⁴
herds that graze,

Or frost to flow’rs, that their gay wardrobe wear,

When first the white thorn blows—
¹¹¹⁵

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s 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,
¹¹¹⁶

Where your old bards,
¹¹¹⁷
the famous Druids lie,

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona
¹¹¹⁸
high,

Nor yet where Deva
¹¹¹⁹
spreads her wizard
¹¹²⁰
stream:

Aye me, I fondly dream!

Had ye been there, for what could that have done?

What could the muse
¹¹²¹
herself, that
¹¹²²
Orpheus bore,
¹¹²³

The muse herself, for her enchanting
¹¹²⁴
son

Whom universal
¹¹²⁵
nature did lament,

When by the rout
¹¹²⁶
that made the hideous roar

His goary visage
¹¹²⁷
down the stream was sent,

Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore.

Alas! What boots
¹¹²⁸
it, with incessant care

To tend the homely
¹¹²⁹
slighted shepherd’s trade,

And strictly meditate the thankless muse?

Were it not better done, as others use,

To sport
¹¹³⁰
with Amaryllis
¹¹³¹
in the shade,

Or with the tangles of Neaera’s
¹¹³²
hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear
¹¹³³
spirit doth raise
¹¹³⁴

(That last infirmity of noble mind!)

To scorn delights, and live laborious days.

But the fair guerdon,
¹¹³⁵
when we hope to find,
¹¹³⁶

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury
¹¹³⁷
with th’ abhorrèd shears

And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,

Phoebus
¹¹³⁸
replied, and touched my trembling ears.

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,

Nor in the glistering
¹¹³⁹
foil
¹¹⁴⁰

Set off to th’ world, nor in broad rumor
¹¹⁴¹
lies,

But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove,

As he pronounces lastly
¹¹⁴²
on each deed.

Of so much fame in Heav’n expect thy meed.
¹¹⁴³

O fountain Arethuse,
¹¹⁴⁴
and thou honored flood,
¹¹⁴⁵

Smooth-sliding Mincius,
¹¹⁴⁶
crowned with vocal reeds,

That strain I heard was of a higher mood.

But now my oat
¹¹⁴⁷
proceeds

And listens to the herald of the sea
¹¹⁴⁸

That came in Neptune’s plea.

He asked the waves, and asked the felon
¹¹⁴⁹
winds,

What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged
¹¹⁵⁰
wings
¹¹⁵¹

That blows from off each beakèd
¹¹⁵²
promontory.

They knew not of his story,

And sage Hippotades
¹¹⁵³
their answer brings;

That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed,

The air was calm, and on the level brine

Sleek Panope
¹¹⁵⁴
with all her sisters played.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in
¹¹⁵⁵
th’ eclipse
¹¹⁵⁶
and rigged with curses dark,
¹¹⁵⁷

That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus,
¹¹⁵⁸
reverend sire, went footing slow,

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet
¹¹⁵⁹
sedge,
¹¹⁶⁰

Inwrought
¹¹⁶¹
with figures dim, and on the edge

Like to that sanguine flower
¹¹⁶²
inscribed with woe.

“Ah! Who hath reft
¹¹⁶³
(quoth he) my dearest pledge?”
¹¹⁶⁴

Last came, and last did go,

The pilot of the Galilean lake.
¹¹⁶⁵

Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain,

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
¹¹⁶⁶

He shook his mitered locks, and stern bespake:

“How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,

Anow
¹¹⁶⁷
of such as for their belly’s sake

Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?

Of other care they little reck’ning make

Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast

And shove away the worthy bidden
¹¹⁶⁸
guest.

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learned ought else the least

That to the faithfull herdsman’s art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are
¹¹⁶⁹
sped,
¹¹⁷⁰

And when they list,
¹¹⁷¹
their lean and flashy
¹¹⁷²
songs

Grate on their scrannel
¹¹⁷³
pipes of wretched straw.

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,

But swoll’n with wind and the rank
¹¹⁷⁴
mist
¹¹⁷⁵
they draw,
¹¹⁷⁶

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion
¹¹⁷⁷
spread,

Besides what the grim
¹¹⁷⁸
wolf with privy
¹¹⁷⁹
paw

Daily devours apace,
¹¹⁸⁰
and nothing said!

But that two-handed engine
¹¹⁸¹
at the door

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”

Return, Alpheus,
¹¹⁸²
the dread
¹¹⁸³
voice is past

That shrunk thy streams. Return, Sicilian muse,
¹¹⁸⁴

And call the vales
¹¹⁸⁵
and bid them hither cast

Their bells
¹¹⁸⁶
and flowrets
¹¹⁸⁷
of a thousand hues.

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
¹¹⁸⁸

Of shades and wanton
¹¹⁸⁹
winds, and gushing brooks,

On whose fresh
¹¹⁹⁰
lap
¹¹⁹¹
the swart star
¹¹⁹²
sparely
¹¹⁹³
looks,

Throw hither all your quaint
¹¹⁹⁴
enamelled eyes
¹¹⁹⁵

That on the green turf suck the honeyed show’rs

And purple all the ground with vernal
¹¹⁹⁶
flow’rs.

Bring the rath
¹¹⁹⁷
primrose that forsaken dies,

The tufted crow-toe, and pale gessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freaked
¹¹⁹⁸
with jet,

The glowing violet,

The muskrose, and the well attired woodbine,

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head

And every flower that sad
¹¹⁹⁹
embroidery wears:

Bid amaranthus all his beauties shed,

And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,

To strew the laureate
¹²⁰⁰
hearse
¹²⁰¹
where Lycid’ lies.

For so to interpose
¹²⁰²
a little ease

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.

Aye me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas

Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled,

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides
¹²⁰³

Where thou perhaps under the whelming
¹²⁰⁴
tide

Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous
¹²⁰⁵
world,

Or whether thou to our moist
¹²⁰⁶
vows denied
¹²⁰⁷

Sleep’st, by the fable of Bellerus
¹²⁰⁸
old,

Where the great vision of the guarded mount
¹²⁰⁹

Looks toward Namancos
¹²¹⁰
and Bayona’s
¹²¹¹
hold—

Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth,
¹²¹²

And O, ye dolphins, waft
¹²¹³
the hapless youth.