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"Yet rede aright, and if this friendly lay
"Thou nathless judgest all too slight and vain,
"Let my well-meaning mend my ill essay:
"So may I greet thee with a nobler strain,
"When soon we meet for aye, in yon star-sprinkled plain."
"Thou nathless judgest all too slight and vain,
"Let my well-meaning mend my ill essay:
"So may I greet thee with a nobler strain,
"When soon we meet for aye, in yon star-sprinkled plain."
Last came a bard of more exalted tread,
And [1]Thyrsis hight by Dryad, Fawn, or Swain,
Whene'er he mingled with the sylvan train;
But seldom that; for higher thoughts he fed;
For him full oft the heav'nly Muses led
To clear Euphrates, and the secret mount,
To Araby, and Eden, fragrant climes;
All which the sacred bard would oft recount:
And thus in strain, unus'd in grove or shade,
To sad Musæus rightful homage paid.
And [1]Thyrsis hight by Dryad, Fawn, or Swain,
Whene'er he mingled with the sylvan train;
But seldom that; for higher thoughts he fed;
For him full oft the heav'nly Muses led
To clear Euphrates, and the secret mount,
To Araby, and Eden, fragrant climes;
All which the sacred bard would oft recount:
And thus in strain, unus'd in grove or shade,
To sad Musæus rightful homage paid.
"Thrice
- ↑ Hight Thyrsis.] i. e. Milton. Lycidas and the Epitaphium Damonis are the only Pastorals we have of Milton's, in the latter of which, where he laments Car. Deodatus under the name of Damon, he calls himself Thyrsis.
