While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or ushered with a shower still,

When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,

130 With minute-drops from off the eaves.
And, when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
135 Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe with heaved stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There, in close covert, by some brook,
140 Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowry work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,

145 With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.

And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings, in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,

150 Softly on my eyelids laid;

155

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,

Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.

But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowèd roof,
With antique pillars massy-proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
160 Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced quire below,

In service high and anthems clear,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 165 Dissolve me into esctasies,

And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
170 Where I may sit and rightly spell

175

5

10

Of every star that heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew,
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give;
And I with thee will choose to live.

SONG. SWEET ECHO

(From Comus, acted 1634)

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen
Within thy airy shell,

By slow Meander's margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are?

O, if thou have

Hid them in some flowery cave,

Tell me but where,

Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the
Sphere!

So may'st thou be translated to the skies,

And give resounding grace to all heaven's har

monies.

Listen where thou art sitting

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
5 The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honour's sake,

Goddess of the silver lake,

Listen and save!

Listen, and appear to us, 10 In name of great Oceanus.

By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace,
And Tethys' grave majestic pace;
By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wizard's hook;
15 By scaly Triton's winding shell,

And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell;
By Leucothea's lovely hands,

And her son that rules the strands;
By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet,
20 And the songs of Sirens sweet;
By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,
And fair Ligea's golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks
Sleeking her soft alluring locks;

25 By all the Nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance;
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head
From thy coral-paven bed,

And bridle in thy headlong wave,

30 Till thou our summons answered have.

Listen and save!

LYCIDAS

(1638)

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

5 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.
10 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.

15

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

20 With lucky words favour my destined urn, And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill; 25 Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, 30 Oft till the star that rose at evening bright Toward 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 35 From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damotas loved to hear our song.

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,
40 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. 45 As killing as the canker to the rose,

50

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.

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,

55 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,

60 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 uncessant care 65 To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use,