Edmund Spenser

“ Als Colin Clout she would not once disdain;
O careful verse!
"But now such happy cheer is turn'd to heavy chance,
Such pleasance now displac'd by dolor's dint;
All music sleeps, where Death doth lead the dance,
And shepheards' wonted solace is extinct.
The blue in black, the green in gray, is tinct;
The gaudy garlands deck her grave,
The faded flowers her corse embrave.
O heavy herse!
Mourn now, my Muse, now mourn with tears besprint ”

“ Shepheards they weren of the best,
And lived in lowly leas;
And, sith they souls be now at rest,
Why do we them disease?
Such one he was (as I have heard
Old Algrind often sayn)
That whilome was the first shepheard,
And lived with little gain:
And meek he was, as meek might be,
Simple as simple sheep;
Humble, and like in each degree
The flock which he did keep. ”

“ Delight is laid abed; and pleasure past;
No sun now shines; clouds have all overcast.
"Now leave, ye shepheards' boys, your merry glee;
My Muse is hoarse and weary of this stound:
Here will I hang my pipe upon this tree,
Was never pipe of reed did better sound:
Winter is come that blows the bitter blast,
And after winter dreary death does hast.
"Gather together, ye my little flock,
My little flock, that was to me so lief;
Let me, ah! let me in your folds ye lock,
Ere the breme winter breed you greater grief. ”

“ Making his way between the Cup
And golden Diademe;
The rampant Lion hunts he fast,
With dogs of noisome breath,
Whose baleful barking brings in hast
Pine, plagues, and dreary death.
Against his cruel scorching heat,
Where thou hast coverture,
The wasteful hills unto his threat
Is a plain overture:
But, if thee list to holden chat
With seely shepheard's swain,
Come down, and learn the little what,
That Thomalin can sayn.
MOR. Siker thou's but a lazy loord,
And recks much of thy swink,
That with fond terms, and witless words,
To blear mine eyes dost think. ”

“ Ye gentle shepheards! which your flocks do feed,
Whether on hills, or dales, or other where,
Bear witness all of this so wicked deed;
And tell the lass, whose flower is wox a weed,
And faultless faith is turn'd to faithless fear,
That she the truest shepheard's heart made bleed
That lives on earth, and loved her most dear.
HOB. O! careful Colin, I lament thy case;
Thy tears would make the hardest flint to flow! ”

“ PIERS. CUDDIE.
PIERS.
Cuddie, for shame, hold up thy heavy head,
And let us cast with what delight to chase
And weary this long ling'ring Phœbus' race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards' lads to lead
In rhymes, in riddles, and in bidding base;
Now they in thee, and thou in sleep, art dead.
CUD. Piers, I have piped erst so long with pain,
That all mine oaten reeds be rent and wore,
And my poor Muse hath spent her spared store,
Yet little good hath got, and much less gain.
Such pleasance makes the grasshopper so poor,
And lig so laid, when winter doth her strain. ”

“ Then to a hill his fainting flock he led,
And thus him plain'd, the while his sheep there fed:
"Ye gods of love! that pity lovers' pain,
(If any gods the pain of lovers pity,)
Look from above, where you in joys remain,
And bow your ears unto my doleful ditty.
And, Pan! thou shepheards' god, that once didst love,
Pity the pains that thou thyself didst prove.
"Thou barren ground, whom winter's wrath hath wasted,
Art made a mirror to behold my plight:
Whilome thy fresh spring flower'd, and after hasted
Thy summer proud, with daffodillies dight ”

“ Such an one shepheards would make full fain;
Such an one would make thee young again.
THE. Thou art a fon, of thy love to boast;
All that is lent to love will be lost.
CUD. Seest how brag yond bullock bears,
So smirk, so smooth, his pricked ears?
His horns be as broad as rainbow bent,
His dewlap as lithe as lass of Kent:
See how he venteth into the wind;
Weenest of love is not his mind?
Seemeth thy flock thy counsel can,
So lustless be they, so weak, so wan;
Clothed with cold, and hoary with frost,
Thy flock's father his courage hath lost. ”

“ Cease now, my Muse, now cease thy sorrows' source,
O joyful verse!
"Why wail we then? why weary we the gods with plaints,
As if some evil were to her betight?
She reigns a goddess now among the saints,
That whilome was the saint of shepheards light,
And is installed now in heavens' height,
I see thee, blessed soul! I see
Walk in Elysian fields so free.
O happy herse!
Might I once come to thee, (O that I might!)
O joyful verse!
"Unwise and wretched men, to weet what's good or ill,
We deem of death as doom of ill desert ”

“ DIG. Such as the shepheards, such be their sheep,
For they nill listen to the shepheard's voice;
But if he call them, at their good choice
They wander at will and stay at pleasure,
And to their folds yede at their own leisure. ”

“ Whilome all these were low and lief,
And loved their flocks to feed;
They never stroven to be chief,
And simple was their weed:
But now (thanked be God therefore!)
The world is well amend,
Their weeds be not so nighly wore;
Such simplesse might them shend!
They be yclad in purple and pall,
So hath their God them blist;
They reign and rulen over all,
And lord it as they list;
Ygirt with belts of glittering gold,
(Might they good shepheards been!) ”

“ Colin Clout, I ween, be his self boy,
(Ah, for Colin! he whilome my joy:)
Shepheards such, God might us many send,
That doen so carefully their flocks tend.
DIG. Thilk same shepheard might I well mark,
He has a dog to bite or to bark;
Never had shepheard so keen a cur,
That waketh and if but a leaf stur.
Whilome there wonned a wicked wolf,
That with many a lamb had gutted his gulf,
And ever at night wont to repair
Unto the flock, when the welkin shone fair,
Yclad in clothing of silly sheep,
When the good old man used to sleep ”

“ And often the shepheards that did them keep:
This was the first source of shepheards' sorrow,
That now nill be quit with bail nor borrow.
PAL. Three things to bear be very burdenous,
But the fourth to forbear is outrageous:
Women, that of love's longing once lust,
Hardly forbearen, but have it they must:
So when choler is inflamed with rage,
Wanting revenge, is hard to assuage:
And who can counsel a thirsty soul,
With patience to forbear the offer'd bowl?
But of all burdens, that a man can bear,
Most is, a fool's talk to bear and to hear. ”

“ What shoulden shepheards other things tend,
Than, sith their God his good does them send,
Reapen the fruit thereof, that is pleasure,
The while they here liven at ease and leisure?
For, when they be dead, their good is ygoe,
They sleepen in rest, well as other moe:
Then with them wends what they spent in cost,
But what they left behind them is lost.
Good is no good, but if it be spend;
God giveth good for none other end.
PIERS. Ah! Palinode, thou art a world's child:
Who touches pitch, must needs be defil'd;
But shepheards (as Algrind 7 used to say)
Must not live alike as men of the lay. ”

“ It specially containeth a discourse of old age, in the person of Thenot, an old shepheard, who, for his crookedness and unlustiness, is scorned of Cuddie, an unhappy herdman's boy. The matter very well accordeth with the season of the moneth, the year now drooping, and as it were drawing to his last age. For as in this time of year, so then in our bodies, there is a dry and withering cold, which congealeth the curdled blood, and freezeth the weather-beaten flesh, with storms of Fortune and hoar-frosts of Care. ”

“ Ah, God! that love should breed both joy and pain!
"It is not Hobbinol 2 wherefore I plain,
Albe my love he seek with daily suit;
His clownish gifts and court'sies I disdain,
His kids, his cracknels, and his early fruit.
Ah, foolish Hobbinol! thy gifts be vain;
Colin them gives to Rosalind again.
"I love thilk lass, (alas! why do I love?)
And am forlorn, (alas! why am I lorn?) ”

“ But I doubt not, so soon as his name shall come into the knowledge of men, and his worthiness be sounded in the trump of Fame, but that he shall be not only kiss'd, but also beloved of all, embraced of the most, and wonder'd at of the best. No less, I think, deserveth his wittiness in devising, his pithiness in uttering, his complaints of love so lovely, his discourses of pleasure so pleasantly, his pastoral rudeness, his moral wiseness, his due observing of decorum every where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speech ”

“ Uncouth, unkiss'd, said the old famous poet Chaucer: whom for his excellency and wonderful skill in making, his scholar Lidgate, a worthy scholar of so excellent a maister, calleth the loadstar of our language: and whom our Colin Clout in his Æglogue, calleth Tityrus the god of shepheards, comparing him to the worthiness of the Roman Tityrus, Virgil. ”

“ Even so do those rough and harsh terms enlumine, and make more clearly to appear, the brightness of brave and glorious words. So oftentimes a discord in music maketh a comely concordance: so great delight took the worthy poet Alceus to behold a blemish in the joint of a well-shaped body. ”

“ I see your tears that from your boughs do rain,
Whose drops in dreary icicles remain.
"All so my lustful leaf is dry and sere,
My timely buds with wailing all are wasted;
The blossom which my branch of youth did bear,
With breathed sighs is blown away and blasted;
And from mine eyes the drizzling tears descend,
As on your boughs the icicles depend.
"Thou feeble flock! whose fleece is rough and rent,
Whose knees are weak through fast and evil fare,
Mayst witness well, by thy ill government,
Thy master's mind is overcome with care:
Thou weak, I wan ”

“ Other some not so well seen in the English tongue, as perhaps in other languages, if they happen to hear an old word, albeit very natural and significant, cry out straightway, that we speak no English, but gibberish, or rather such as in old time Evander's mother spake: whose first shame is, that they are not ashamed, in their own mother tongue, to be counted strangers and aliens. The second shame no less than the first, that what so they understand not, they straightway deem to be senseless, and not at all to be understood. ”

“ But the fewer wolves (the sooth to sayn)
The more be the foxes that here remain.
DIG. Yes, but they gang in more secret wise,
And with sheeps' clothing doen them disguise.
They walk not widely as they were wont,
For fear of rangers and the great hunt,
But privily prowling to and fro,
Enaunter they might be inly know.
HOB. Or privy or pert if any bin,
We have great bandogs will tear their skin.
DIG. Indeed thy Ball is a bold big cur,
And could make a jolly hole in their fur:
But not good dogs them needeth to chase,
But heedy shepheards to discern their face ”

“ Let break your sounder sleep, and pity augment."
PER. O Colin, Colin! the shepheards' joy,
How I admire each turning of thy verse;
And Cuddie, fresh Cuddie, the liefest boy,
How dolefully his dole thou didst rehearse!
CUD. Then blow your pipes, shepheards, till you be at home;
The night hieth fast, it's time to be gone. ”

“ These my present pains, if to any they be pleasurable or profitable, be you judge, mine own Maister Harvey, to whom I have both in respect of your worthiness generally, and otherwise upon some particular and special considerations, vowed this my labour, and the maidenhead of this our common friend's poetry; himself having already in the beginning dedicated it to the noble and worthy gentleman, the right worshipful Maister Philip Sidney, a special favourer and maintainer of all kind of learning. ”

“ Whilome thou was peregall to the best,
And wont to make the jolly shepheards glad,
With piping and dancing didst pass the rest.
PER. Ah! Willie, now I have learn'd a new dance;
My old music marr'd by a new mischance.
WIL. Mischief might to that mischance befall,
That so hath reft us of our merriment;
But rede me what pain doth thee so appal;
Or lovest thou, or be thy younglings miswent?
PER. Love hath misled both my younglings and me;
I pine for pain, and they my pain to see.
WIL. Perdie, and wellaway! ill may they thrive ”

“ But, if any will rashly blame such his purpose in choice of old and unwonted words, him may I more justly blame and condemn, or of witless headiness in judging, or of heedless hardiness in condemning: for, not marking the compass of his bent, he will judge of the length of his cast: for in my opinion it is one especial praise of many, which are due to this Poet, that he hath laboured to restore, as to their rightful heritage, such good and natural English words, as have been long time out of use, and almost clean disherited. ”

“ While they, letting their sheep run at large,
Passen their time, that should be sparely spent,
In lustihed and wanton merriment.
Thilk same be shepheards for the devil's stead,
That playen while their flocks be unfed:
Well it is seen their sheep be not their own,
That letten them run at random alone:
But they be hired for little pay
Of other, that caren as little as they,
What fallen the flock, so they have the fleece,
And get all the gain, paying but a piece.
I muse, what account both these will make ”

“ Such surly shepheards have we none,
They keepen all the path.
MOR. Here is a great deal of good matter
Lost for lack of telling;
Now sicker I see thou dost but clatter,
Harm may come of melling.
Thou meddlest more than shall have thank,
To witen shepheards' wealth;
When folk be fat, and riches rank,
It is a sign of health. ”