LYCIDAS. ET once more, O ye laurels! and once more, YET 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, LYCIDAS. EN! iterum laurus, iterum salvete myricæ Causa gravis, pia causa, subest, et amara deûm lex; Non nullo vitreum fas innatet ille feretrum 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 Pavit uterque greges ad fontem et rivulum et umbram. Tempore nos illo, nemorum convexa priusquam, Aurora reserante oculos, cœpere videri, Urgebamus equos ad pascua: novimus horam Rore recentes greges passi pinguescere noctis |