Noble Lord and Lady bright, I have brought ye new delight. Here behold so goodly grown Three fair branches of your own. Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970 Their faith, their patience, and their truth, And sent them here through hard assays With a crown of deathless praise, To triumph in victorious dance O'er sensual folly and intemperance. 975 The dances ended, the Spirit epiloguizes. _Spir._ To the ocean now I fly, And those happy climes that lie Where day never shuts his eye, Up in the broad fields of the sky. There I suck the liquid air, 980 All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three That sing about the golden tree. Along the crisped shades and bowers Revels the spruce and jocund Spring; 985 The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours Thither all their bounties bring. There eternal Summer dwells, And west winds with musky wing About the cedarn alleys fling 990 Nard and cassia's balmy smells. Iris there with humid bow Waters the odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue Than her purfled scarf can shew, 995 And drenches with Elysian dew (List, mortals, if your ears be true) Beds of hyacinth and roses, Where young Adonis oft reposes, Waxing well of his deep wound, 1000 In slumbers soft, and on the ground Sadly sits the Assyrian queen. But far above, in spangled sheen, Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced 1005 After her wandering labors long, Till free consent the gods among Make her his eternal bride, And from her fair unspotted side Two blissful twins are to be born, 1010 Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn. But now my task is smoothly done: I can fly, or I can run Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, 1015 And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the moon. Mortals, that would follow me, Love Virtue; she alone is free. She can teach ye how to climb 1020 Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heaven itself would stoop to her. LYCIDAS. In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637; and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, then in their height.