Classic Poem

Here full of April, veil'd with Sorrow's wing,
For lovely lays, I dreary dirges sing.
Whoso hath seen young lads (to sport themselves)
Run in a low ebb to the sandy shelves;
Where seriously they work in digging wells,
Or building childish sorts of cockle-shells;
Or liquid water each to other bandy;
Or with the pebbles play at handy-dandy,
Till unawares the tide hath clos'd them round,
And they must wade it through or else be drown'd:
May (if unto my pipe he listen well)
My Muse' distress with theirs soon parallel.
For where I whilom sung the loves of swains,
And woo'd the crystal currents of the plains,
Teaching the birds to love, whilst every tree
Gave his attention to my melody:
Fate now (as envying my too-happy theme)
Hath round begirt my song with Sorrow's stream,
Which till my Muse wade through and get on shore,
My grief-swoll'n soul can sing of love no more.
But turn we now (yet not without remorse)
To heavenly Aletheia's sad discourse,
That did from Fida's eyes salt tears exhale,
When thus she show'd the solitary vale.
Just in the midst this joy-forsaken ground
A hillock stood, with springs embraced round,
(And with a crystal ring did seem to marry
Themselves to this small Isle sad-solitary,)
Upon whose breast, which trembled as it ran,
Rode the fair downy-silver-coated swan:
And on the banks each cypress bow'd his head,
To hear the swan sing her own epiced.
As when the gallant youth which live upon
The western downs of lovely Albion,
Meeting, some festival to solemnize,
Choose out two, skill'd in wrestling exercise,
Who strongly, at the wrist or collar cling,
Whilst arm-in-arm the people make a ring:
So did the water round this Isle enlink,
And so the trees grew on the water's brink;
Waters their streams about the Island scatter
And trees perlorm'd as much unto the water:
Under whose shade the nightingale would bring
Her chirping young, and teach them how to sing.
The woods' most sad musicians thither hie,
As it had been the Sylvians' Castalie,
And warbled forth such elegiac strains,
That struck the winds dumb; and the motley plains
Were fill'd with envy that such shady places
Held all the world's delights in their embraces.
O how (methinks) the imps of Mneme bring
Dews of invention from their sacred spring!
Here could I spend that spring of poesy,
Which not twice ten suns have bestow'd on me;
And tell the world the Muses' love appears
In nonag'd youth as in the length of years.
But ere my Muse erected have the frame,
Wherein t' enshrine an unknown shepherd's name,
She many a grove, and other woods must tread,
More hills, more dales, more founts must be display'd,
More meadows, rocks, and from them all elect
Matter befitting such an architect.
As children on a play-day leave the schools,
And gladly run unto the swimming pools;
Or in the thickets, all with nettles stung,
Rush to despoil some sweet thrush of her young;
Or with their hats (for fish) lade in a brook
Withouten pain; but when the Morn doth look
Out of the Eastern gates, a snail would faster
Glide to the schools, than they unto their master:
So when before I sung the songs of birds,
Whilst every moment sweeten'd lines affords,
I pip'd devoid of pain, but now I come
Unto my task, my Muse is stricken dumb.
My blubb'ring pen her sable tears lets fall
In characters right hieroglyphical,
And mixing with my tears are ready turning
My late white paper to a weed of mourning;
Or ink and paper strive how to impart
My words, the weeds they wore, within my heart:
Or else the blots unwilling are my rhymes
And their sad cause should live till after-times;
Fearing if men their subject should descry,
They forthwith would dissolve in tears and die.
Upon the Island's craggy rising bill
A quadrant ran, wherein by artless skill,
At every corner Nature did erect
A column rude, yet void of all defect:
Whereon a marble lay. The thick-grown briar,
And prickled hawthorn (woven all entire)
Together clung, and barr'd the gladsome light
From any entrance, fitting only night.
No way to it but one, steep and obscure,
The stairs of rugged stone, seldom in ure,
All overgrown with moss, as Nature sat
To entertain Grief with a cloth of state.
Hardly unto the top I had ascended,
But that the trees (siding the steps) befriended
My weary limbs, who bowing down their arms
Gave hold unto my hands to 'scape from harms:
Which evermore are ready, still present
Our feet, in climbing places eminent.
Before the door (to hinder Phaebus' view)
A shady box-tree grasped with a yew,
As in the place' behalf they menac'd war
Against the radiance of each sparkling star.
And on their barks (which Time had night deprav'd)
These lines (it seem'd) had been of old engrav'd:
" This place was fram'd of yore to be possess'd
By one which sometime hath been happiest. "