140

Was never heard the nymphs to daunt
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee, with honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep;
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings, in airy stream1
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid.

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

Sent by some spirit to mortals good,
Or th' unseen genius of the wood.

But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,2
And love the high embowèd3 roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,4
And storied windows richly dight,5
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced choir below,
In service high and anthems clear,

150

160

As may with sweetness, through mine

[This is a formal elegy in the conventional pastoral form, supposed to be sung by a shepherd in honor of a dead companion (notice that the singer is described in the concluding lines, 186193), but really uttering the thoughts of Milton concerning his friend, Edward King, who was drowned while crossing the Irish Sea in 1637. The framework of the poem, then, is in the classical tradition: the laurels, myrtles, and ivy of the opening lines are symbols of the poetic art; there is a formal address to the Muses (line 15), there are references to the pastoral poet Theocri tus of Sicily, who had sung of Arethusa and Alpheus (lines 85, 132-33), and to Virgil, who had celebrated the river Mincius (86); the art of poetry is symbolized as that of shepherds (65), and the life of ease as one of sporting with shepherdesses (67-69). On the other hand, Milton blends with this classical material allusions to English places, persons, and conditions. The island of Mona and the River Dee (54-55) stand for the coast of Wales, near which King was drowned; the "hill" and "flock" of 23-24 stand for Cambridge University, where the poet and his friend were students together, and Camus (103) is the River Cam at Cambridge; Damotas (36) is supposed to represent some Cambridge friend or tutor. Still more striking is the Miltonic blending of Christian with classical theology; thus in lines 81-84 he sets forth his personal faith in the divine Judge of his work as poet, and in 172-181 describes the Christian heaven, with the "nuptial song" of the Marriage of the Lamb. The fact that King was to enter the Church also gave him opportunity to introduce the long passage on the state of the times (114-131), and, in his own words, to foretell "the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height," under the symbol of false shepherds whose poetry (123-4) is as bad as their doctrines (125-7). The wolf of 128 is supposed to be the Roman Catholic Church, and the two-handed weapon of 130 the new Reformation of Milton's time (perhaps called two-handed because of the two Houses of Parliament).]

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once

more,

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,

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 lawns3 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,

Oft till the star that rose at evening, bright, 30

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

From the glad sound would not be absent long;

And old Damætas loved to hear our song. I knew. Knew how. 2 welter. Be tossed. 3 lawns. Pastures.

4 gray-fly. Trumpet-fly, heard especially at 5 battening. Feeding.

summer noon.

That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed;

The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panopes with all her sisters played.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 100 Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,

That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,

I Atropos, the third of the Fates.

2 Phabus. Apollo, god of poets.

3 foil. Gold-leaf.

4 oat. Flute (cf. line 33). 5 herald. Triton. To inquire in Neptune's name. Hippotades. Eolus, god of winds.

Panope. A sea-ny mph. 9 sedge. Of reeds.

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge

Like to that sanguine flower10 inscribed with woe.

"Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge?"11

109

Last came, and last did go, The pilot12 of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain). He shook his mitred13 locks, and stern bespake:

"How well could I have spared 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 reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest. Blind mouths! that scarce themselves