I'll seek him there; I know ere this The cold, cold earth doth shake him; But I will go or send a kiss

By you, sir, to awake him.

Pray, hurt him not though he be dead,
He knows well who do love him,
And who with green turfs rear his head,
And who do rudely move him.

He's soft and tender (pray take heed);
With bands of cowslips bind him,
And bring him home; but 't is decreed
That I shall never find him.

125

A PASTORAL SUNG TO THE KING

MONTANO, SILVIO, and MIRTILLO, Shepherds

MON. BAD are the times. SIL. And worse than they are we.

MON. Troth, bad are both; worse fruit and ill the tree.

The feast of shepherds fail. SIL. None crowns the cup

Of wassail now or sets the quintell up;
And he who us'd to lead the country round,
Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes grief-

drown'd.

AMBO. Let's cheer him up. SIL. Behold him weeping-ripe.

MIR. Ah! Amaryllis, farewell mirth and pipe;

Since thou art gone, no more I mean to

play

To these smooth lawns my mirthful roundelay.

Dear Amaryllis! MON. Hark! SIL. Mark! MIR. This earth grew sweet

Where, Amaryllis, thou didst set thy feet. AMBO. Poor pitied youth! MIR. And here the breath of kine

And sheep grew more sweet by that breath of thine.

This flock of wool and this rich lock of hair, This ball of cowslips, these she gave me

here.

SIL. Words sweet as love itself. Montano, hark!

MIR. This way she came, and this way

too she went;

How each thing smells divinely redolent!
Like to a field of beans when newly blown,
Or like a meadow being lately mown.
MON. A sweet-sad passion-

MIR. In dewy mornings when she came

this way

Sweet bents would bow to give my love the day;

And when at night she folded had her

sheep,

Daisies would shut, and, closing, sigh and

weep.

Besides (ah me!) since she went hence to dwell,

The voices' daughter ne'er spake syllable. But she is gone. SIL. Mirtillo, tell us whether.

MIR. Where she and I shall never meet together.

MON. Forfend it, Pan, and, Pales, do thou please

To give an end. MIR. To what? SIL. Such griefs as these.

MIR. Never, oh, never! Still I may endure The wound I suffer, never find a cure.

MON. Love for thy sake will bring her to these hills

And dales again. MIR. No, I will languish still;

And all the while my part shall be to weep, And with my sighs, call home my bleating

sheep;

And in the rind of every comely tree

I'll carve thy name, and in that name kiss thee.

MON. Set with the sun thy woes.

SIL. The day grows old,

And time it is our full-fed flocks to fold.

CHOR. The shades grow great, but greater

grows our sorrow;

But let's go steep

Our eyes in sleep,

And meet to weep

To-morrow.

126

THE CROWD AND COMPANY

IN holy meetings there a man may be
One of the crowd, not of the company.

127

TO DAISIES, NOT TO SHUT SO SOON

SHUT not so soon; the dull-ey'd night
Has not as yet begun

To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.

No marigolds yet closed are,

No shadows great appear;

Nor doth the early shepherd's star

Shine like a spangle here.

Stay but till my Julia close

Her life-begetting eye,

And let the whole world then dispose

Itself to live or die.

128

HOW SPRINGS CAME FIRST

THESE Springs were maidens once that

lov'd,

But lost to that they most approv❜d.
My story tells by love they were

Turn'd to these springs which we see here;
The pretty whimpering that they make,
When of the banks their leave they take,
Tells ye but this, they are the same,
In nothing chang'd but in their name.

129

TO CENONE

WHAT conscience say is it in thee,
When I a heart had one,

To take away that heart from me,
And to retain thy own?

For shame or pity now incline
To play a loving part;
Either to send me kindly thine,
Or give me back my heart.

Covet not both; but if thou dost
Resolve to part with neither,
Why! yet to show that thou art just,
Take me and mine together.