Death mocks the fond possession, bursts the chain, 150 Return unfed, my lambs; by fortune crost Whole realms extend and oceans roar between? 155 160 165 170 EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS. Then, as the moonbeam slumbered on the plain, 'What? loitering here? unless some cause dissuade, 200 205 Too weak to save the swain who knew them best! As late a new-compacted pipe I found, It gave beneath my lips a loftier sound; Too high indeed the notes; for as it spoke 210 The waxen junctures in the labour broke. Whence Arthur sprang. If length of days be mine, In long neglect; or tuned to British strains K 2 215 220 225 These lays, and more like these, for thee designed I wrote, and folded in the laurel's rind. For thee I also kept, of antique mould, Two spacious goblets, rough with laboured gold. (Rare was the gift, but yet the giver more, Mansus the pride of the Chalcidian shore). In bold existence, from the workman's hand, Two subjects on their fretted surface stand. Here by the Red Sea coast, in length displayed, Arabia pants beneath her odorous shade; And here the Phoenix from his spicy throne, In heavenly plumage radiant and alone, With these he meditates no common wound, But proudly throws a fiery glance around; Yes! with the just, the holy and the pure, Then cease our tears! from his superior seat 270 275 280 285 To solemnise the rites, and boundless joys inspire. THE SAME BY PROFESSOR MASSON, 1873.-REPRINTED FROM HIS 'LIFE OF MILTON,' VOL. II. p. 85. ON THE DEATH OF DAMON. The Argument. so, THYRSIS and DAMON, shepherds of the same neighbourhood, following the same pursuits, were friends from their boyhood, in the highest degree of mutual attachment. Thyrsis, having set out to travel for mental improvement, received news when abroad of Damon's death. Afterwards at length returning, and finding the matter to be he deplores himself and his solitary condition in the following poem. Under the guise of Damon, however, is here understood Charles Diodati, tracing his descent on the father's side from the Tuscan city of Lucca, but otherwise English-a youth remarkable, while he lived, for his genius, his learning, and other most shining virtues. NYMPHS of old Himera's stream (for ye it was that remembered Daphnis and Hylas when dead, and grieved for the sad fate of Bion), Tell through the hamlets of Thames this later Sicilian story— What were the cries and murmurs that burst from Thyrsis the wretched, What lamentations continued he wrung from the caves and the rivers, Wrung from the wandering brooks and the grove's most secret recesses, Mourning his Damon lost, and compelling even the midnight Into the sound of his woe, as he wandered in desolate places. Twice had the ears in the wheat-fields shot through the green of their sheathing, As many crops of pale gold were the reapers counting as garnered, Since the last day that had taken Damon down from the living, |