Death in John Milton’s poem “Lycidas”

John Milton’s poem “Lycidas” is a pastoral elegy that not only laments the death of a dear friend drowned in the sea, but also discusses death and the promise of eternal life after the material existence on earth.

            The lyrical voice begins the poem by mentioning many plants that are each sacred to a different god and he says “I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude / And with forced fingers rude” (122), which sets out the tone of his lamentation throughout the poem. Like the berries that he is plucking before their time he thinks that his friend is “dead ere his prime” (123). The lyrical voice also seems to be worried about his own death in the face of his friend’s early demise, this can be seen when he invokes the Muses and say “So may some gentle muse / With lucky words favor my destined urn” (123).

The poem follows to tell us how the lyrical voice and Lycidas were friends and happy shepherds and that now all of nature is morning the young man’s death as much as his friend: “Whom universal nature did lament”. (125) The lyrical voice questions where the muses where when his friend died, but reckons that they would not have been able to do anything.

The lyrical voice then expound how unfair he thinks it is that his friends that had lived laborious days and was a pure spirit was taken from life before he could receive his reward for leading such a life, before his fame. The god Phoebus interrupts the poet to correct him saying that fame is not for the mortal life and that Lycidas may expect his reward in Heaven. It is interesting that we have a Greek god, Phoebus Apollus, promising the existence of a Heaven that is clearly Christian: “And perfect witness of all-judging Jove, / As he pronounces lastly on each deed. / Of so much fame in Heav’n expected thy meed”. (126)

“Lycidas” is a poem that discusses death and the possible existence of a Heaven and a Hell. The lyrical voice questions the unfairness of death at a young age, before you had the chance to live your life to its fullest, but the interference of a god correcting him and reminding him of the fair judgment of Jove and a Haven for eternal life, seems to express the poet’s belief in this eternal existence in bliss after the fleeting period of life on earth.

Milton, John. “Lycidas” The Annotated Milton. Ed. Burton Raffel. New York: Bantam Dell, 2008. 122-132. E-book.