Tell me, tell me, I implore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil,
Prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us,
By that God we both adore,
Tell this soul with sorrow laden
If, within the distant Aden,1
It shall clasp a sainted maiden
Whom the angels name Lenore—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden

Whom the angels name Lenore.”

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, Bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting— "Get thee back into the tempest

And the night's Plutonian shore !
Leave no black plume as a token
Of that lie thy soul hath spoken !
Leave my loneliness unbroken;

Quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and
Take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting,
Still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas

Just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming
Of a demon's that is dreaming,

1 Paradise: a form of Eden.

And the lamplight o'er him streaming
Throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow
That lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted-nevermore !

E. A. POE

8. LYCIDAS

In this Monody the Author bewails a learned friend,1 unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas 1637. And by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy then in their height.

YET once more, O ye laurels,2 and once more Ye myrtles 2 brown, with ivy 2 never-sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.3 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 : 4 He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear.

2 Emblems of poetry.

1 Edward King, born 1612. 3 Milton had already written L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Comus, but did not believe himself to have attained the "inward ripeness" necessary to a poet. See No. 73.

4 King had written some Latin poems.

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well1 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 2

With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes, turn

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.3
For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,4
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 a-field; and both together heard
What time the gray-fly 5 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 wester-
ing wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to th' oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damotas loved to hear our song.

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 ;

to

2 Poet.

1 Aganippe, in Mount Helicon, near which was an altar Jove. 3 Coffin. They were fellow-collegians of Christ's College, Cam

bridge.

5 The trumpet-fly, whose hum is loudest in the heat of the day. 6 Feeding.

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 flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear
When first the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep

Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona1 high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard 2 stream:
Ay me! I fondly dream

Had ye been there—for what could that have done?

What could the Muse 3 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?
Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate 4 the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,5
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?

1 Anglesea.

2 The Dee was said to have certain magical properties. 3 Calliope. See the story of Orpheus.

4 Practise.

5 In allusion to the lighter love-poetry of the day.

Fame is the spur that the clear1 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' abhorrèd shears,
And splits the thin-spun life. "But not the
praise,"

Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears: "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil ; Nor in the glistering foil 2

Set off to the 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 Heaven expect thy meed."
O fountain Arethuse,3 and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius,3 crowned with vocal reeds!
That strain I heard was of a higher mood.
But now my oat 4 proceeds,

And listens to the herald of the sea

That came in Neptune's plea. 5

He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain,
And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beakèd promontory:

They knew not of his story,

And sage Hippodatès 6 their answer brings,

1 Illustrious (Lat. clarus).

2 Gold-leaf (Lat. folium), without substance.

3 Used for pastoral poetry, in allusion to Theocritus and

Vergil. See the story of Arethusa and Alphæus.

4 Song: see "oaten flute," above.

5 i.e. Deputed by Neptune to hold inquiry.

6 Aeolus, son of Hippotes.