The Affectionate Shepherd | Page 3

and thou
my honey, bee.
I would put amber bracelets on thy wrests,
Crownets of pearle about

thy naked armes:
And when thou sitst at swilling Bacchus feasts

My lips with charmes should save thee from all harmes: And when in
sleepe thou tookst thy chiefest pleasure,
Mine eyes should gaze upon
thine eyelids treasure.
And every morne by dawning of the day,
When Phoebus riseth with a
blushing face,
Silvanus chappel-clarkes shall chaunt a lay,
And play
thee hunts-up in thy resting place:
My coote thy chamber, my bosome
thy bed
Shall be appointed for thy sleepy head.
And when it pleaseth thee to walke abroad,
Abroad into the fields to
take fresh ayre,
The meades with Floras treasure should be strowde,

The mantled meaddowes, and the fields so fayre.
And by a silver
well with golden sands
Ile sit me downe, and wash thine yvory hands.
And in the sweltring heate of summer time,
I would make cabinets
for thee, my love;
Sweet-smelling arbours made of eglantine

Should be thy shrine, and I would be thy dove.
Cool cabinets of fresh
greene laurell boughs
Should shadow us, ore-set with thicke-set
eughes.
Or if thou list to bathe thy naked limbs
Within the cristall of a
pearle-bright brooke,
Paved with dainty pibbles to the brims,
Or
cleare, wherein thyselfe thyselfe mayst looke;
Weele goe to Ladon,
whose still trickling noyse
Will lull thee fast asleepe amids thy joyes.
Or if thoult goe unto the river side,
To angle for the sweet freshwater
fish,
Arm'd with thy implements that will abide,
Thy rod, hooke,
line, to take a dainty dish;
Thy rods shall be of cane, thy lines of silke,

Thy hooks of silver, and thy bayts of milke.
Or if thou lov'st to hear sweet melodie,
Or pipe a round upon an oaten
reede,
Or make thyselfe glad with some myrthfull glee,
Or play
them musicke whilst thy flocke doth feede.
To Pans owne pype Ile

helpe my lovely lad,
Pans golden pype, which he of Syrinx had.
Or if thou darst to climbe the highest trees
For apples, cherries,
medlars, peares, or plumbs,
Nuts, walnuts, filbeards, chestnuts,
cervices,
The hoary peach, when snowy winter comes;
I have fine
orchards full of mellowed frute,
Which I will give thee to obtaine my
sute.
Not proud Alcynous himselfe can vaunt
Of goodlier orchards or of
braver trees
Than I have planted; yet thou wilt not graunt
My
simple sute, but like the honey bees
Thou suckst the flowre till all the
sweet be gone,
And loost mee for my coyne till I have none.
Leave Guendolen, sweet hart; though she be faire,
Yet is she light;
not light in vertue shining,
But light in her behaviour, to impaire

Her honour in her chastities declining;
Trust not her teares, for they
can wantonnize,
When teares in pearle are trickling from her eyes.
If thou wilt come and dwell with me at home,
My sheepcote shall be
strowed with new greene rushes: Weele haunt the trembling prickets as
they rome
About the fields, along the hauthorne bushes;
I have a
pie-bald curre to hunt the hare,
So we will live with daintie forrest
fare.
Nay, more than this, I have a garden plot,
Wherein there wants nor
hearbs, nor roots, nor flowers; Flowers to smell, roots to eate, hearbs
for the pot,
And dainty shelters when the welkin lowers:

Sweet-smelling beds of lillies, and of roses,
Which rosemary banks
and lavender incloses.
There growes the gilliflowre, the mynt, the dayzie
Both red and white,
the blue-veynd violet;
The purple hyacinth, the spyke to please thee,

The scarlet dyde carnation bleeding yet:
The sage, the savery, and
sweet margerum,
Isop, tyme, and eye-bright, good for the blinde and
dumbe.

The pinke, the primrose, cowslip and daffodilly,
The hare-bell blue,
the crimson cullumbine,
Sage, lettis, parsley, and the milke-white
lilly,
The rose and speckled flowre cald sops-in-wine,
Fine pretie
king-cups, and the yellow bootes,
That growes by rivers and by
shallow brookes.
And manie thousand moe I cannot name
Of hearbs and flowers that in
gardens grow,
I have for thee, and coneyes that be tame,
Young
rabbets, white as swan, and blacke as crow;
Some speckled here and
there with daintie spots:
And more I have two mylch and milke-white
goates.
All these and more Ile give thee for thy love,
If these and more may
tyce thy love away:
I have a pidgeon-house, in it a dove,
Which I
love more than mortall tongue can say.
And last of all Ile give thee a
little lambe
To play withall, new weaned from her dam.
But if thou wilt not pittie my complaint,
My teares, nor vowes, nor
oathes, made to thy beautie: What shall I doo but languish, die, or faint,

Since thou dost scorne my teares, and my soules duetie: And teares
contemned, vowes and oaths must faile,
And where teares cannot,
nothing can prevaile.
Compare the love of faire Queene Guendolin
With mine, and thou
shalt [s]ee how she doth love thee: I love thee for thy qualities divine,

But shee doth love another swaine above thee:
I love thee for thy
gifts, she for hir pleasure;
I for thy vertue, she for beauties treasure.
And alwaies, I am sure, it cannot last.
But sometime Nature will
denie