Lycidas

John Milton · 1638 CE · Poem · English · Enlightenment

A shepherd-poet mourns a companion drowned in the Irish Sea and asks why anyone should labour at a strict trade when death takes the diligent early anyway. A digression hands the complaint to St Peter and aims it at a hireling clergy who care nothing for the sheep. Written for a Cambridge memorial volume for Edward King, lost at sea in 1637.

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