...and rural ditties; he dared to express the age-old sense of loss in language plain and repetitious: But O the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou...desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'crgrown, And all their echoes mourn (37-41) Echoes, indeed. Abandoned nature laments the departed...

...Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Dametas lov'd to hear our song. But O the heavy change, now...Thee shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves With wilde thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown And all their echoes mourn. The willows and the hazel copses...

...denial vain, and coy excuse. 7525 'Lycidas' For we were nursed upon the self-same hill. 7526 'Lycidas' hat wanton in the air Know no such liberty. 6539 To Altheu. From Prison' 7527 'Lycidas' The woods, and desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown. 7528 'Lycidas'...

...speaker enacts his own initiation into a new sense of life, as not eternally repeating itself but finite: "But O the heavy change, now thou art gone, / Now thou art gone, and never must return!" (37-38) Repetition, a usual way of expressing the old easy recurrence, here conveys instead a struggle...

...danc'd, and Fauns with clov'n heel From the glad sound would not be absent long, 35 And old Damaetas lov'd to hear our song. But O the heavy change, now...Caves, With wild Thyme and the gadding Vine o'ergrown, 40 And all their echoes mourn. The Willows and the Hazel Copses green Shall now no more be seen, Fanning...

...cloven heel. From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Damaetas loved to hear our song.0 But O the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou...desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,0 40 And all their echoes mourn. The willows, and the ha2el copses green, Shall now no more...

...themselves as shepherds, but then punctures the illusion, as he registers the pain of losing this paradise: "But O the heavy change, now thou art gone, / Now thou art gone, and never must return!" ( 37-8). Indeed, much of the poem vacillates between the poet's attempts to find comfort in the pastoral...

...heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone and never must return! With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, And all their echoes, mourn. The willows, and the hazel...

...heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone and never must Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, And...

...danced, and fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long. And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. But O the heavy change, now thou...wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, And all the echoes mourn.43 The poem moves toward acceptance of Milton's loss of his friend with the admonition:...