Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he is beneath the watery floor.

 Context: These lines are taken from Lycidas by John Milton.

Explanation: Milton concludes with praise for Lycidas, including the well-known phrase “Look homeward Angel.” The speaker bids “woeful Shepherds weep no more,” one of many phrases loaded with alliteration assonance, and consonance.

Adopting antithesis the speaker notes, “So, Lycidas, sunk low, but mounted high,” describing heaven’s celebration of the shepherd’s arrival and his conversion into the Genius of the shore” to protect others from his fate. Milton draws on the tradition of VIRGIL, who imagines in his Eclogues Julius Caesar in the guise of Daphnis to be “good” to men below.

Critical reception of Lycidas remains mixed. Observant scholars have found multiple weaknesses in the poem.  Added to those already noted is Russell Fraser’s observation that Milton has not written the “monody,” or poem in a single voice, that he claims because a second distinctive voice enters at the poem’s conclusion.

A seemingly disapproving voice tells us, “Thus sang the uncouth swain,” suggesting Milton’s dismissive evaluation of his own voice. Fraser’s suggestion that Milton remains a poet “still at odds” with his own material may account for the uneven presentation others have observed.

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