Wave at his wings, in aery stream
  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 the unseen Genius of the wood. 
    But let my due feet never fail
  To walk the studious cloisters pale,
  And love the high embowed roof,
  With antic pillars massy-proof
  And storied windows richly dight,
  Casting a dim religious light. 
  There let the pealing organ blow,
  To the full-voiced quire below,
  In service high, and anthems clear,
  As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
  Dissolve me into ecstasies,
  And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. 
    And may at last my weary age
  Find out the peaceful hermitage,
  The hairy gown and mossy cell,
  Where I may sit, and rightly spell
  Of every star that heaven doth shew,
  And every herb that sips the dew;
  Till old experience do attain
  To something like prophetic strain. 
    These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
  And I with thee will choose to live.

52. Lycidas.

In this Monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester, on the Irish Sea, 1637; and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compel 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 rime. 
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear. 
  Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
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
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,
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 lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the Morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly 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 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,