LYCIDAS
By John Milton
1
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 forc’d 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.
Explanation
Milton says he is returning to poetry again, but this time not joyfully. He is writing sadly because his dear friend Lycidas (a name for his real-life friend, Edward King) has died young. Milton feels he must write something beautiful to honor him, even though it’s painful.
2
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.
Explanation
He calls upon the Muses (goddesses of poetry) to help him sing for Lycidas. He wants their help so that someone will remember his poetry after he dies, just like he now honors Lycidas with his words.
3
For we were nurs’d upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appear’d
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt’ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening, bright,
Toward heav’n’s descent had slop’d his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Temper’d to th’oaten flute;
Rough Satyrs danc’d, and Fauns with clov’n heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damœtas lov’d to hear our song.
Explanation
Milton remembers their time together as young students, living and learning in the countryside, enjoying nature and writing poetry. They shared dreams and laughter under the morning and evening skies. It was a peaceful, happy time.
4
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 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.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flow’rs, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds’ ear.
Explanation
Now that Lycidas is gone, everything feels sad and empty. Nature itself seems to mourn him—the trees, the flowers, the caves. His death feels like a disease that destroys beauty and joy for everyone around.
5
Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Clos’d o’er the head of your lov’d 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,
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,
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?
Explanation
Milton asks, where were the Nymphs (nature spirits) when Lycidas drowned? Why didn’t they save him? He compares Lycidas’s death to the tragic death of the legendary poet Orpheus, whose body floated down a river. It feels unfair that such a gifted person was lost.
6
Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra’s hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th’abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. “But not the praise,”
Phoebus replied, and touch’d my trembling ears:
“Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to th’ world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heav’n expect thy meed.”
Explanation
He wonders what’s the point of living a hardworking, pure life—studying, writing, avoiding worldly pleasures—if death comes suddenly and wipes it all away. He starts to lose faith in the reward of fame and virtue.
7
O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour’d flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown’d with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the herald of the sea
That came in Neptune’s plea;
He ask’d the waves, and ask’d the felon winds,
“What hard mishap hath doom’d this gentle swain?”
And question’d every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory:
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray’d:
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters play’d.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in th’eclipse, and rigg’d with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Explanation
But then the god Apollo (Phoebus) responds: True fame doesn’t come from the world, but from God. Heaven sees all, and there, true value is rewarded. So even if the world ignores you, heaven won’t.
8
Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flow’r inscrib’d with woe:
“Ah! who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge?”
Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain);
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:
“How well could I have spar’d for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies’ 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 guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learn’d aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoll’n with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”
Explanation
Milton’s tone shifts again. He describes the god of the sea sending his messengers to find out how Lycidas died. The sea was calm, so they couldn’t blame the weather. It was the fault of the ship—a cursed ship—that sank and took Lycidas with it.
9
Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flow’rets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamell’d eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honey’d showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flow’rs.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freak’d with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies.
For so, to interpose a little ease,
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
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold;
Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Explanation
Another character enters, Camus, a river god (representing the university). He appears sadly and honors Lycidas as a beloved student. Then St. Peter, the biblical figure, shows up. He’s angry at corrupt church leaders who don’t care for their followers. He says they are selfish and greedy, unlike Lycidas, who was noble and good.
10
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the wat’ry 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,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest 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.
Explanation
Milton calls on the natural world—flowers, valleys, rivers—to mourn Lycidas. He asks them to decorate his grave with beautiful things. He wonders where Lycidas’s body might be—lost in the sea, or resting near mythical lands—but he hopes that heaven has received him.
11
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.
Explanation
Milton comforts himself and others by saying: don’t cry anymore. Lycidas isn’t really gone. Like the sun that sets but rises again, Lycidas has “risen” to heaven. He now lives in peace with the angels and saints, free from all pain.
12
Thus sang the uncouth swain to th’oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey;
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.
Explanation
The poem ends with the poet (the “uncouth swain” or humble shepherd) finishing his song. It’s morning, but now the sun has set. He stands up, puts on his cloak, and walks away—ready to face a new day, perhaps still sad, but with hope.
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