Lycidas

For the genus of jumping spiders formerly known as Lycidas, see Maratus.

Lycidas by James Havard Thomas, bronze cast in collections of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Tate Britain

"Lycidas" (/ˈlɪsɪdəs/) is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, Justa Edouardo King Naufrago, dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a friend of Milton at Cambridge who drowned when his ship sank in the Irish Sea off the coast of Wales in August 1637. The poem is 193 lines in length and is irregularly rhymed. Many of the other poems in the compilation are in Greek and Latin, but "Lycidas" is one of the poems written in English.[1] Milton republished the poem in 1645.

  1. ^ Womack, Mark (1 January 1997). "On the Value of Lycidas". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. 37 (1): 119–136. doi:10.2307/450776. JSTOR 450776.