POEM OF THE DAY

The last familiar quote to be given its poetic context this week is this couplet which ends Milton’s elegy, Lycidas: “At last he rose and twitch’d his mantle blue;/ Tomorrow to fresh Woods and Pastures new.” Milton’s lament for a friend drowned in the Irish Channel, is not memorable for its grief but its display of poetic pyrotechnics. Here is the start of the poem, and a splendid central peroration:

Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more

Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear, I come to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,

And with forc’d fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. . .

Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd’s trade,

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse,

Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair? Fame is the spur that the clear 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’abhorred shears,

And slits the thin spun life. But not the praise,

Phoebus repli’d, and touch’d my trembling ears;

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,

Nor in the glistering toil

Set off to th’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 Heav’n expect thy meed.