John Milton - Poemata - Latin, Greek and Italian Poems

At least if antient piety and truth
With all the learned labours of thy youth
May serve thee aught, or to have left behind
A sorrowing friend, and of the tuneful kind.

Go, seek your home, my lambs, my thoughts are due
To other cares than those of feeding you.
Yes, Damon! such thy sure reward shall be,
But ah, what doom awaits unhappy me?

Who, now, my pains and perils shall divide,
As thou wast wont, for ever at my side,
Both when the rugged frost annoy'd our feet,
And when the herbage all was parch'd with heat,
Whether the grim wolf's ravage to prevent
Or the huge lion's, arm'd with darts we went?

Whose converse, now, shall calm my stormy day,
With charming song who, now, beguile my way?
Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due
To other cares than those of feeding you.

In whom shall I confide? Whose counsel find
A balmy med'cine for my troubled mind?
Or whose discourse with innocent delight
Shall fill me now, and cheat the wint'ry night,

While hisses on my hearth the pulpy pear,
And black'ning chesnuts start and crackle there,
While storms abroad the dreary meadows whelm,
And the wind thunders thro' the neighb'ring elm?

Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due
To other cares than those of feeding you.
Or who, when summer suns their summit reach,
And Pan sleeps hidden by the shelt'ring beech,

When shepherds disappear, Nymphs seek the sedge,
And the stretch'd rustic snores beneath the hedge,
Who then shall render me thy pleasant vein
Of Attic wit, thy jests, thy smiles again?

Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due
To other cares than those of feeding you.
Where glens and vales are thickest overgrown
With tangled boughs, I wander now alone

Till night descend, while blust'ring wind and show'r
Beat on my temples through the shatter'd bow'r.
Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due
To other cares than those of feeding you.

Alas, what rampant weeds now shame my fields,
And what a mildew'd crop the furrow yields!
My rambling vines unwedded to the trees
Bear shrivel'd grapes, my myrtles fail to please,

Nor please me more my flocks; they, slighted, turn
Their unavailing looks on me, and mourn.
Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due
To other cares than those of feeding you.

Aegon invites me to the hazel grove,
Amyntas, on the river's bank to rove,
And young Alphesiboeus to a seat
Where branching elms exclude the midday heat—

"Here fountains spring–here mossy hillocks rise—"
"Here Zephyr whispers and the stream replies—"
Thus each persuades, but deaf to ev'ry call
I gain the thickets, and escape them all.

Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due
To other cares than those of feeding you.
Then Mopsus said (the same who reads so well
The voice of birds, and what the stars foretell,

For He by chance had noticed my return)
What means thy sullen mood, this deep concern?
Ah Thyrsis! thou art either crazed with love,
Or some sinister influence from above,

Dull Saturn's influence oft the shepherd rue,
His leaden shaft oblique has pierced thee through.
Go, go, my lambs, unpastur'd as ye are,
My thoughts are all now due to other care.

The Nymphs amazed my melancholy see,
And, Thyrsis! cry—what will become of thee?
What would'st thou, Thyrsis? such should not appear
The brow of youth, stern, gloomy, and severe,

Brisk youth should laugh and love—ah shun the fate
Of those twice wretched mopes who love too late!
Go, go, my lambs, unpastur'd as ye are,
My thoughts are all now due to other care.

Aegle with Hyas came, to sooth my pain,
And Baucis' daughter, Dryope the vain, [155] Characters in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Fair Dryope, for voice and finger neat
Known far and near, and for her self–conceit,

Came Chloris too, whose cottage on the lands
That skirt the Idumanian current stands;
But all in vain they came, and but to see
Kind words and comfortable lost on me.

Go, go, my lambs, unpastur'd as ye are,
My thoughts are all now due to other care.
Ah blest indiff'rence of the playful herd,
None by his fellow chosen or preferr'd!

No bonds of amity the flocks enthrall,
But each associates and is pleased with all;
So graze the dappled deer in num'rous droves,
And all his kind alike the zebra loves'

The same law governs where the billows roar
And Proteus' shoals o'erspread the desert shore;
The sparrow, meanest of the feather'd race,
His fit companion finds in ev'ry place,

With whom he picks the grain that suits him best,
Flits here and there, and late returns to rest,
And whom if chance the falcon make his prey,
Or Hedger with his well–aim'd arrow slay,

For no such loss the gay survivor grieves'
New love he seeks, and new delight receives.
We only, an obdurate kind, rejoice,
Scorning all others, in a single choice,

We scarce in thousands meet one kindred mind,
And if the long–sought good at last we find,
When least we fear it, Death our treasure steals,
And gives our heart a wound that nothing heals.

Go, go, my lambs, unpastur'd as ye are,
My thoughts are all now due to other care.
Ah, what delusion lured me from my flocks,
To traverse Alpine snows, and rugged rocks!

What need so great had I to visit Rome
Now sunk in ruins, and herself a tomb?
Or, had she flourish'd still as when, of old
For her sake Tityrus forsook his fold,

What need so great had I t'incur a pause
Of thy sweet intercourse for such a cause,
For such a cause to place the roaring sea,
Rocks, mountains, woods, between my friend and me?

Else, I had grasp'd thy feeble hand, composed
Thy decent limbs, thy drooping eye–lids closed,
And, at the last, had said—Farewell—Ascend—
Nor even in the skies forget thy friend.

Go, go, my lambs, untended homeward fare,
My thoughts are all now due to other care.
Although well–pleas'd, ye tuneful Tuscan swains!
My mind the mem'ry of your worth retains,

Yet not your worth can teach me less to mourn
My Damon lost—He too was Tuscan born,
Born in your Lucca, city of renown,
And Wit possess'd and Genius like your own.

Oh how elate was I, when, stretch'd beside
The murm'ring course of Arno's breezy tide,
Beneath the poplar–grove I pass'd my hours,
Now cropping myrtles, and now vernal flow'rs,

And hearing, as I lay at ease along,
Your swains contending for the prize of song!
I also dared attempt (and, as it seems
Not much displeas'd attempting) various themes,

For even I can presents boast from you,
The shepherd's pipe and osier basket too,
And Dati and Francini both have made
My name familiar to the beechen shade,