Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.'
The two last verses some commentators have explained as a prophecy of the execution of Archbishop Laud, which took place on the 10th of January, 1644, six years after the publication of 'Lycidas.' Warton thus paraphrases the lines: 'But there will soon be an end of all these evils; the axe is at hand, to take off the head of him who has been the great abettor of these corruptions of the gospel. This will be done by one stroke.'
If this is the meaning of the passage, it was certainly a very remarkable prophecy, when it was written, for the king and the archbishop were then at the height of their power, and there was little or nothing to indicate its overthrow.