Nothing lay closer to Milton’s heart than the interests of what he believed the true church; and nothing touched him more than the abuses which were then prevalent in the church of England. In the safe harbor of his father’s country home, resting on his oars before the appointed time for the race in which he was to give away all his strength and joy, surrounded and inspired by the fresh, pure air from the granite rocks of Puritanism, all his growing strength was gathering its energies for the struggle. This just indignation and honest protest must find its way in the poem through the grief that sweeps over him, and which, because so deep, touches and vivifies all his deepest thoughts. But even that strong under current of conviction has no power long to steady him against the wave of sorrow which breaks above his head, none the less powerful because it breaks in a line of white and shivers itself into drops which flash diamond colors in the warm and pure sunlight of his cultured imagination. More poetry than sorrow? Then there is more poetry in Lycidas than in any other poem of the same length in our language. It would be impossible here to go through the poem with the close care to all little points which is necessary to enable one fully to comprehend its exquisite beauty and finish. It is like one of Beethoven’s symphonies, where at first we are so occupied with the one grand thought that we surrender ourselves entirely to it, and think ourselves completely satisfied. But as we appropriate that more and more fully, within and around it wonderful melodies start and twine, and this experience is repeated again and again till the music seems almost infinite in its content. Let us, then, briefly go over the burden of the monody, our chief effort being to show how perfectly at one it is throughout, how natural the seemingly abrupt changes,—only pausing now and then to speak of some special beauty which is so marked that one cannot pass it by in silence. If we succeed in showing a continued and natural thought in the whole and a satisfactory solution for the collision which gives rise to the poem, our end will have been accomplished. Milton begins in due order by giving, as prelude, his reason for singing. But he has written only seven full lines before, in the eighth, the key-note is struck by the force of sorrow, which, after saying “Lycidas is dead,” lingers on the strain and repeats, to heighten the grief, “dead ere his prime.” The next line, the ninth, is still more pathetic in its echoing repetition and its added cause for mourning. (In passing, let us say that the effect is greatly increased in reading this line if the first word be strongly emphasized.) Because he hath not left his peer, all should sing for him. No more excuse is needed. Sorrow pleases itself in calling up the neglected form, and then passionately turns to the only solace that it can have—“Some melodious tear.”