LYCIDAS. YET ET 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 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: 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. LYCIDAS. EN! iterum laurus, iterum salvete myricæ Maturescentem prævortens improbus annum. Causa gravis, pia causa, subest, et amara deûm lex; Nec jam sponte mea vobis rata tempora turbo. Nam periit Lycidas, periit superante juventa Imberbis Lycidas, nec par manet illius alter. Quis cantare super Lycida neget? Ipse quoque artem Nôrat Apollineam, versumque imponere versu. Non nullo vitreum fas innatet ille feretrum Flente, voluteturque arentes corpus ad auras, Indotatum adeo et lacrymæ vocalis egenum. 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 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. 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, Toward Heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Quare agite, o sacri fontis queis cura, sorores, Cui sub inaccessi sella Jovis exit origo : Incipite, et sonitu graviore impellite chordas. Lingua procul male prompta loqui, suasorque mo rarum Sit pudor: alloquiis ut mollior una secundis Pieridum faveat, cui mox ego destiner, urnæ : Et gressus prætergrediens convertat, et “Esto" Dicat " amana quies atra tibi veste latenti :" Uno namque jugo duo nutribamur: eosdem Pavit uterque greges ad fontem et rivulum et umbram. Tempore nos illo, nemorum convexa priusquam, Aurora reserante oculos, cæpere videri, Urgebamus equos ad pascua: novimus horam Aridus audiri solitus qua clangor asili; Rore recentes greges passi pinguescere noctis Sæpius, albuerat donec quod vespere sidus Hesperios axes prono inclinasset Olympo. |