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 beakéd promontory:

           They knew not of his story;

           And sage Hippotadés their answer brings,

           That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd;

           The air was calm, and on the level brine

           Sleek Panopé with all her sisters play'd.

           It was that fatal and perfidious bark

           Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd 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

           Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge

           Like to that sanguine flower inscribed 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 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 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, swoln 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."

             Return, Alphéus; the dread voice is past

           That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,

           And call the vales, and bid them hither cast

           Their bells and flowerets 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 flowers.

           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 laureate 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

           Visitest 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!

             Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,

           For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

           Sunk though he be beneath the watery 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